S ix men, all wearing white hard hats and orange ear protectors, huddled in one corner of what was to become a themed fast food restaurant, That’s a Wrap, that would sport vinyl wallpaper of Monroe, Bogart, Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, and Harrison Ford. Not twenty feet away, on the far side of a temporary wall, passengers hurried down a long hallway that connected Salt Lake airport’s concourses C and D.
The entrance to the work site was through a thick sheet of black plastic. Sheetrock dust covered the floor along with scraps of aluminum conduit, pieces of electrical wire, and a half dozen used paper cups from the Starbucks down on concourse D.
There was debate among the workers about how to install a length of ventilation duct; the architect had neglected to note the location of the sprinkler system.
“There’s no way, Billy, that you’re going to get around that pipe,” the foreman said at last. “And you sure as shit can’t go through it.”
Billy disagreed. To illustrate his suggestion, he dragged two sawhorses to below the spot in question, threw two lengths of aluminum studs across them, and climbed up, while the foreman shouted out for him to use a stepladder because he didn’t want to lose his workman’s comp record.
But by then there was no stopping Billy. He punched a section of ceiling panel up and into the space above, and slid it to one side.
Shining a flashlight, he poked his head up inside.
“What the fuck?” he said. He withdrew his head and addressed his fellow workers. “Is this one of those haze-the-rookie things? Because if it is, it sucks.”
When no one answered, Billy jumped down and used a broom handle to knock the additional ceiling panels out of the way. The fourth panel wouldn’t budge. Neither would the fifth, or the sixth. He tried another, and it lifted partially. Billy carefully slid it to the left.
Now he and the others could see up into the false ceiling.
“What is that?” one of the men said. “A suit bag?”
It was a six-foot length of bulging, heavy black plastic, zippered shut.
The foreman took a tentative step forward.
“That ain’t no suit bag,” said the smallest of the six workers, a man with a goatee and a tattoo of three X’s on his neck. He spoke softly, which was not his way. “That’s a body bag. And there’s something in it.”
W alt Fleming pulled the white Grand Cherokee marked “Blaine County Sheriff” to the curb in front of Elizabeth Shaler’s home. As he sat behind the wheel, staring up at the house, Walt realized he was rubbing the scar through the shirt of his blue uniform, a firm reminder of that evening eight years earlier. It still pulsed hot from time to time, for no reason at all. It did so now. He felt oddly nostalgic for a moment, reliving the event that had propelled him to the front page and secured his bid for county sheriff, an election he’d won by a landslide.
Now a household name, Liz Shaler had recently returned to her Sun Valley home-albeit a second home-allegedly to announce her candidacy for president. Walt’s job, along with the people inside, was to keep her alive. He radioed dispatch that he was leaving SD-1, his Cherokee, and heading inside.
A black Porsche Cayenne parked behind the Cherokee, and out from the passenger seat stepped Patrick Cutter, with his George Hamilton golfer’s tan and porcelain white smile. Walt acknowledged Dick O’Brien, Cutter’s security chief, visible through the windshield. O’Brien, stocky, and with an Irishman’s nose, offered Walt a mock salute. Two dark-suited minions, a man and a young woman, both of whom, judging by their black clothing, knew nothing about dressing for the arid Idaho summer, attempted to follow Cutter but were quickly turned back by their boss. They returned to the idling car a little sheepishly.
Liz Shaler’s 1950s ranch home would have fit inside Patrick Cutter’s six-bay garage. Walt wondered how that made Cutter feel as he bounded up the walkway like a kid arriving home from school.
The Secret Service agent held the door for Walt. “Looks like Dryer called in the varsity,” Walt said to Patrick Cutter.
“There’s been a credible threat,” Cutter announced. It struck Walt as both odd and unfortunate that Patrick Cutter, no matter how many billions he was worth, should have such intelligence ahead of local law enforcement. With the Cutter Communications Conference-C 3-less than twenty-four hours away, the proper chain of command would have been Dryer, Walt, and then O’Brien, who would tell Cutter; not the other way around.
Cutter could read a man’s face. “Don’t worry, Walt, no one’s pulling an end run on you. Dick O’Brien received the intel ahead of even Dryer.”
“That’s not possible,” Walt blurted out, without thinking.
“That’s the way it is,” Cutter said. “We do a lot of business with the military. Believe me. Those are our satellites they’re using, for Christ sakes.” He winked: a mannerism Walt found intentionally offensive.
They stood half in the house. A man with bad acne scars approached from the open kitchen. He was dressed like a preppie, wearing a white shirt, no tie, a blue blazer, blue jeans, and loafers. He offered his hand to Walt while still too far away for them to shake.
“Adam Dryer,” he said.
“At last,” Walt said. The man tried a little too hard with the handshake.
“You guys have not met?” an astonished Patrick Cutter asked.
“Not face-to-face,” Dryer said, still shaking Walt’s hand. “But if e-mail were any judge, we’re practically married.”
“Mr. Cutter mentioned a credible threat,” Walt said, getting free of the man’s eager hand.
“Did he?” Dryer asked, looking at Cutter disappointedly. “Have you met the AG?” Dryer stepped out of Walt’s line of sight.
Elizabeth Shaler was on the phone in the kitchen. Her eyes lit up at the sight of Walt, and she waved enthusiastically, then pointed to the phone and scrunched up her face into complaint. She wore a sleeveless white shirt with a simple string of pearls. The countertop blocked sight of the rest of her, but she hadn’t added a pound. If anything, he thought she looked a little too thin and not a day older than when the two of them had been in this house together under much different circumstances.
“I guess you have,” Dryer said, seeing Shaler’s reaction. He sounded almost jealous.
“It’s a small town,” Walt said.
“Or was,” Cutter added, trying too hard to be friendly, “until people like me moved in. Right, Sheriff?”
“Everybody, take a deep breath,” Walt said. “Everything’s fine. I want to hear about this threat. But first, I think I’m being summoned.”
In fact, Liz Shaler was waving him over to her and pointing down the hallway. She placed the phone down, gave Walt an affectionate hug, and said to Dryer, “I’m going to steal him for a minute.”
As she led him by the hand, Walt felt a pain in his gut just beneath the scar. Liz Shaler sensed this somehow and inquired, “Too familiar?”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s been too long,” she said, closing the door of a small study behind him. “Oh my God, how good it is to see you!”
She devoted her full attention to him. If it was an act, she was profoundly gifted.
“And you, Mrs. Shaler.”
“Liz. Please. Are you kidding me? It’s Walt, not Sheriff. Is that okay?”
“I prefer it.”
“Really good to see you. So much has happened,” she said. “Where to begin?”
Walt felt she owed him none of this and was about to say so, but her energy silenced him.
“I appreciated your note,” she said. “About Charlie.”
“It was a tragedy. I wasn’t even sure you’d see my note. That it would get through to you.”
“It did. You never met him, did you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“But your note was very kind, as if you had. It meant a great deal to me. And stop it with the ma’am!”
Walt fought back a smile. He said, “We stay in here too long and Dryer’s going to have me vetted.”
“You would have liked him-Charlie. And he, you. He knew all about you-about your saving me.”
“Hardly.”
“Of course you did,” she said. “Do you suppose Adam Dryer doesn’t know?”
“I would doubt it.”
“Isn’t that strange? And should I tell him?”
“Your decision entirely,” he said.
“You’d rather I didn’t,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes. Gosh, it’s good to see you. Isn’t it strange how something like that connects two people? I feel like…Well, I’m gushing. Forgive me.”
“It’s an honor to be part of your security detail.”
“Oh…please. I loathe the Secret Service. Not the men themselves-they’re just doing a job-but being watched and accounted for twenty-four/seven. It’s absolutely oppressive.”
“We’re going to have a tight net around you this weekend. I hope you’re still speaking to me Monday.”
She grabbed both his hands in hers. “Monday, and the Monday after that, and every Monday forever, Walt. I can tell you’re nonchalant about this, but I’ve never forgotten that night, and I never will.”
“May there never be another one,” Walt said.
“Amen to that.”
A knock on the door.
“Probably another fund-raising call,” she said.
“So the rumors are true?” he asked.
She bit back a smile. Her eyes were positively luminous. She smelled like a garden of lilacs. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
She pulled open the door. There were five people jammed into the hallway, all vying for her attention.
“Not exactly the same as running for county sheriff,” he said over her shoulder, unsure if she’d heard him or not.
He glanced up the hallway toward the bedroom. He remembered hearing the glass break, could still feel the grip of his weapon cool in his right hand as he slipped it from the holster. Could still feel the hot jolt as the knife entered him. He’d shot three men in the line of duty since that first time-had killed one of them. But nothing came close to this memory. And though he hadn’t admitted it to her, he, too, felt a kindred bond with this woman unlike anything he had with anyone.
She had heard him, for she turned over her shoulder and spoke to him, as if able to block out the five voices all speaking at once. “You didn’t tell me about the divorce, and I’m going to honor that. But when you’re ready, I’d like to hear about it. If you’re okay with that.”
They moved as a group then, back down the hall until she let out an ear-piercing whistle without touching her lips. Walt had once had a baseball coach who could whistle like that. Her entourage shut up, and she was tall enough that when she rose onto her tiptoes she lifted above them. “I have a security meeting with Sheriff Fleming, Agent Dryer, and Patrick Cutter right now. It’s confidential, and none of you are invited. After that, I’m going fly-fishing for the afternoon. And after that I’m yours again. I ask you to respect my schedule, and for the time being to leave the house and take a break. Jenna, that means you, too. Okay…so go. Go!”
The group of handlers dispersed immediately. A moment later it was just the Secret Service detail of four agents, including Dryer, and Patrick Cutter, and Walt. He noticed for the first time that some press was encamped across the street in front of the library, their dark lenses aimed like rifle scopes.
“Let’s get to it,” Dryer said, clapping and rubbing his hands together.
One of Dryer’s men lowered and twisted the living room blinds shut, then left through the front door. Walt noticed another of the detail stood outside the kitchen door. The four of them took seats on a couch and a pair of art deco overstuffed chairs that had been a part of the house since the 1950s. A rectangular glass coffee table, covered in magazines and newspapers, sat as an island between them.
As the four-way conversation began, Walt took a quick assessment: Dryer was efficient and down to business, as he’d learned to expect of the government man; Cutter seemed slightly aloof and impatient, a man with his eyes on the bigger picture; Walt’s job seemed to be to play the paranoid local cop, but he resisted playing to the stereotype; for her part, Liz Shaler found it in her powers to give each person her full attention while scribbling out the occasional note to herself. Walt envisioned the discussion as a transcript written from the recording made by the digital pen that Patrick Cutter placed in the center of the coffee table with everyone’s permission.
FLEMING: So, a credible threat.
DRYER: A telecommunications intercept. Most likely the NSA, although we got it from the Bureau.
CUTTER: Dick never tells me who we get this stuff from. But it’s obviously for real.
DRYER: Very real.
FLEMING: Do we have a transcript?
DRYER: It’s coming, which probably means we’ll get it Tuesday or Wednesday, after the conference and Ms. Shaler’s talk, Sunday morning, are long behind us. Government work.
FLEMING: But credible.
DRYER: Mentions “AG” and a price of five hundred thousand dollars.
SHALER: My stock has gone up. The first man to try to kill me was a volunteer.
CUTTER: Dick feels it’s of concern, certainly, but it was apparently stated vaguely enough that it could be for any date, now or well into the future.
FLEMING: I take it means we make adjustments. Have we considered canceling the talk?
CUTTER: Let’s not get carried away.
FLEMING: You’ll excuse me, sir, but any of us getting carried away is what we’re trying to prevent.
DRYER: Any talk of cancellation is premature. We’ve received twelve threats in the past three weeks. This is by far the most credible, but we need more intel.
CUTTER: It’s the end piece of the conference. I will honor and respect whatever decision you make, Liz, but you know the stakes.
SHALER: No one’s canceling anything. Walt is just looking after me. I appreciate it, and I’m going to listen to him and give it some thought.
DRYER: It comes back onto you, Sheriff. We all report to you.
CUTTER: But not the decision making! Liz can make up her own mind about appearing or not.
FLEMING: I agree with Special Agent in Charge DRYER: We need as much intel as possible. Has the threat been assigned?
DRYER: It didn’t come from OC. That’s what we got from the Bureau. Not mob. A third party, someone unknown to them, is behind the buy. That could be good news, could be bad. But at least it’s not some crime family, because that would scream duck and cover, as far as I’m concerned.
FLEMING: And maybe still does.
DRYER: For now we stick with the plan: My guys cover her in transit and in situ. Your boys clear the routes, handle crowd containment, traffic flow, and advise us on back-door routing. If there’s any investigation to take place, that’s going to have to come from you, Sheriff. It’s not what we do, and I don’t have the staff. I’ve asked the Bureau to stay on top of this, but you never know. They’re overworked and underpaid, just like the rest of us. Most of the rest of us.
CUTTER: I can offer any of Dick’s team. He has a couple dozen men on the ground, as far as I know. Most, if not all, are ex-Bureau or military. No one with less than twelve years. A bunch of investigations among them.
FLEMING: I’ll get with O’Brien then. Thank you. SHALER: I want you all to know that this isn’t the first time and won’t be the last, I’m sure. I feel very safe in your care. I’d like to be kept up on what we know, and I’d be the most comfortable if Sheriff Fleming acted as go-between. So I trust, Agent Dryer, that every effort will be made to keep the sheriff in the loop at all times.
FLEMING: Sure thing.
What the transcript would never reveal, Walt realized, were the nuances of glances and telegraphed body language that accompanied the discussion. Patrick Cutter believed he had the most to lose. He worked himself up throughout the meeting, growing steadily more agitated. Special Agent in Charge Dryer maintained a dispassionate calm, but failed to make eye contact with Walt even once, confirming how uncomfortable he was with Walt’s theoretical control of the conference’s security, and his relationship with Liz Shaler; Dryer was a take-charge man, and he saw Walt as standing in his way. Liz Shaler had stood up for Walt, perhaps a little too much, focusing her attention nearly entirely on him over the ten-minute discussion, embracing Walt as her ally, and perhaps even using this support as a threat to Patrick Cutter and Agent Dryer. Walt came away better informed but oddly less confident of his own position. There were games at play, both subtle and overt. The unspoken but clearly apparent alliance between Cutter and Dryer was what he feared most-they meant to have Liz Shaler to themselves, and now saw Walt’s participation as an impediment.
A commotion at the front door grabbed their attention, and it was a mark of their high nerves that both Dryer and Walt reached for their weapons.
T he guard at the front door announced, “The guide’s here.”
Dryer responded, “Show her in.”
At five feet eleven, Fiona Kenshaw stood an inch taller than Walt. She wore her brown hair up in a ponytail pulled through a ball cap that read “Kiss My Bass.” She wore a purple T-shirt pulled snuggly over her firm frame, and a pair of hiking shorts with multiple pockets.
“Small world, Sheriff.”
Dryer offered Walt a look that said, “You know her, too?”
“Fiona works for the department part-time as our crime-scene photographer,” Walt explained.
“Our waiter at dinner last night,” Liz Shaler said, “let it slip that she had a master’s in marine biology from Scripps. Ski-bummed three years ago and never left. Only in Sun Valley.”
A man followed her through the front door-unannounced, Walt noted-drawing everyone’s attention, including Fiona’s. It was Danny Cutter, Patrick’s wayward younger brother. A radiantly handsome man in his early forties who bore little physical resemblance to his older brother, Danny owned a room the moment he entered-a quality other men envied and women found irresistible. Danny had parlayed this into personal gain for most of his life. Danny blew past Fiona to Liz, whom he kissed affectionately and hugged. He shook hands all around, including with Walt, apparently bearing no grudge over his arrest two years earlier, an event that had been a major setback to his business career. Despite the fact that Walt had the man’s photograph and fingerprints on file at the office-a drug possession-he couldn’t help but like Danny.
Liz leaned toward Walt. “Look, I know Danny had some problems, but they’re behind him now.” Walt found her sympathetic tone illuminating. It wasn’t easy to stay upset with Danny Cutter for very long.
Danny approached Fiona with the elegance of a bullfighter. He shook her hand, and unabashedly sized her up. Walt half expected Fiona to curtsy.
Walt caught Dryer’s eye. “Danny wasn’t announced by your guy. Why not?”
“Mr. Cutter’s known to us,” Dryer explained. “He’s a personal friend of AG Shaler’s. Listen, we’re aware of his priors, Sheriff, if that’s your concern-”
“My concern is that whoever’s coming after her needs access. If you’re not screening every single person-myself included-”
“Danny Cutter?” Dryer asked incredulously.
“He’s vulnerable. He’s a convicted felon on probation. And he has access-open access.” Walt’s phone rang, sparing him more of a reply. He slipped through the door and took the call outside.
It was Nancy, his assistant.
“Transportation Security Administration director from Salt Lake City airport is holding for you. Can I put him through?”
“What’s it about?” Walt asked.
“Said it’s urgent, or I wouldn’t have bothered you.”
“Urgent?” The front door guard overheard this. Walt headed to the Cherokee for privacy. He slid behind the wheel.
“And don’t forget your father,” Nancy said.
“Who could forget my father?” he mumbled. “Okay,” he said into the phone as he started the engine for the sake of the air-conditioning. “Put him through.”
“Listen, we don’t know exactly what we’ve got, only that in this new era of sharing intelligence”-there was no doubting his sarcasm-“it’s my responsibility to pass along this kind of thing in a timely fashion.” Nate Capshaw spoke slowly, as if imagining each word before uttering it. Or maybe, Walt thought, he was considering his choice of words for the sake of legality, carefully weighing how it might read on a court transcript sometime down the road. This won Walt’s attention.
“And much appreciated,” Walt said.
“Workers here found a body this morning just over seventy minutes ago.”
Walt’s internal alarm sounded: Why call the Blaine County sheriff about a body at the Salt Lake airport? “It was inside a body bag that was in turn hidden inside the suspended ceiling of a commercial space under construction between our C and D concourses.” Capshaw was reporting a murder that showed great premeditation.
Walt’s rapid breathing was amplified by the cell phone.
“Still warm,” Capshaw said.
His hands were sweating on the wheel. “So why me?”
“Our video surveillance was down on that concourse because of the work going on. But one of my guys-listen, this is a long shot-but he followed a guy on a hunch. Thought maybe he recognized him from a past life. Used to be a state cop in Rhode Island. This is about the same time as whoever’s in that body bag was being done, right? My guy loses the suspect in E-the E concourse. Frickin’ madhouse, E, with all these regional jets. But this guy in the body bag…This was a pro job. No question about that. No ID on him. Labels cut out of the clothing. Face cut up. Fingertips removed. Some teeth pulled. A real fucking mess-excuse the French. This guy was meant to be a John Doe, and he’s going to stay that way. And the thing of it is…all the cameras we got in E-working cameras, I’m talking about-and we never get a decent look at his face. Are you kidding me? This guy’s fucking Baryshnikov the way he moves. Keeps his back to the cameras the whole time. Then we lose him in the men’s room.”
“But why me?” Walt asked again.
“Seven flights departed from E in the minutes after we lost him. I’m calling all seven destinations, starting with you. Because the first flight to depart was headed up there to Sun Valley. You’ve got that shindig up there this weekend, right? Offers a guy like this some fairly big targets.”
“Sounds like he got his target,” Walt said. “Call the FBI field office. Ask them to check with Washington. I think they’re going to be interested in your John Doe.”
“The flight arrives there in fifteen minutes,” Capshaw said.
“Jesus, why didn’t you say that five minutes ago?” Walt flipped on the flashers, sped away from the curb. He ran the red light at the intersection of Sun Valley Road and Highway 75 and headed south.
“Give me whatever description you’ve got,” Walt said, waiting to launch the siren until the phone call concluded.
It was twenty minutes to the airport, on a good day.
S even minutes later-eight minutes before wheels down-BCS dispatch had rallied three of its eight cruisers. Two had sealed Friedman Airport. The third, driven by deputy Tom Brandon, pulled up to the terminal only seconds behind Walt.
“We’ve got six minutes,” Walt told Brandon, a big-boned, thick man in his later twenties. A pair of aviator glasses hid his dark eyes. Tommy Brandon had been ski patrol on the mountain for six years before applying to the Sheriff’s Office. His star had risen quickly, and with it, Walt’s reliance on him. “Suspect is average to tall, dark hair, black T-shirt, jeans or black jeans.”
“Sheriff?” Other deputies often addressed Walt informally by his first name. Brandon never had, and Walt appreciated it. “That description fits half of the guys in this valley.”
“It’s all we’ve got.”
“And Pete?”
Pete Wood ran security at the small airport. His guys were trained to unzip bags and stare at X-ray machines.
“I briefed him on the way in. His guys will keep their distance. This guy killed a man in Salt Lake,” Walt said. “Keep alert, Tommy. Sounds like he’s pretty good with a knife.”
“At least he’s coming off a plane, he should be clean.”
“Should be,” Walt said ominously. “If he’s got checked luggage, he could have a piece in there. So if and when we get a twenty, we keep him away from baggage claim. We do not want a hostage situation.”
“Got it.”
The Friedman terminal looked bland-like a one-story brown shoebox-when compared with its extraordinary backdrop: a string of foothills rising a thousand feet off the valley floor. This midsection of the valley, the town of Hailey, eleven miles south of Ketchum/Sun Valley, qualified as the transition point between high desert to the south and alpine to the north, leaving the south-facing slopes of the foothills barren, covered in nothing but knee-high wax weed and sagebrush. The north slopes, holding snow longer in the springtime, and the moisture it contained, were covered in evergreen.
The sound of a plane on approach caused both men to turn and look up.
“Showtime,” Walt said.
Brandon raised his voice above the roar of the turboprop. “What about shoes?”
“Shoes?” Walt nearly had to shout.
“Suspects change their hair, their face, but just as often leave on the same pair of shoes. Do we have a photo?”
“No photo. Shoes,” Walt said, sounding impressed.
“You aren’t careful, Sheriff, I’ll run against you in the next primary.”
Walt studied his deputy for the crack of a smile or any sign that he was kidding. But Brandon maintained a poker face.
From the other side of the small terminal came the sudden winding down of the turboprops. The plane had landed.
T he forward door of the Brasilia EMB-120 was lowered, and as the gate-checked hand luggage was wheeled around on a trolley, Walt watched from inside the glass of Gate 2, a well-lit space shared with three car rental agencies along the back wall. Baggage claim was accessed by three garage doors.
The trolley was stacked with roller bags, fly rod tubes, duffel bags, and a wicker gift basket. Passengers descended the steep stairs, picked over the trolley’s contents, and headed toward the terminal.
“Waiting for someone?”
Walt turned and recognized the woman behind the Hertz counter from a fund-raiser the week before.
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Has the divorce gone through? I haven’t seen it in the paper. Sorry to hear about that.” She didn’t sound so sorry.
“Yeah.” Walt briefly took his eyes off the line of arriving passengers. “Julie, right? The wildlife dinner?”
“I did the door. Wearing the elk antlers? How humiliating was that? I had to endure endless comments about my ‘nice rack.’”
Walt avoided checking out her rack by returning his attention to the arrival. The first few passengers were retirement age; then came two families with young kids; then several men who looked like the Cutter conference prototypes, CEOs dressing down in blue blazers, button-down shirts, and khaki pants. A silver-haired golfer and his wife wearing matching St. Andrews sun visors followed the four executives.
“I’m bothering you,” Julie said.
“Busy at the moment,” Walt said.
“On the job? Seriously? What’s up?”
“Just a meet-and-greet. Maybe we could do this later,” he suggested, still not taking his eyes off the arriving passengers.
“Sure,” she said. Walt didn’t like letting her icy tone go uncorrected, but he had no choice.
He checked over with Brandon, who shrugged: still no suspect.
The arriving passengers began to mill about, blocking his view of the plane. Walt moved closer to the arrivals door in order to get a better view. A snarl had formed around the baggage trolley. Two female baggage handlers were arguing with a guy, his back to Walt.
He caught Brandon ’s eye once more and signaled that he was headed outside. The dry, hot air slapped him in the face. He hurried toward the commotion, holding his weapon in the holster as he jogged.
A baggage handler spoke up. “You cannot go back there, sir!”
Walt felt a surge of adrenaline. Someone’s trying to breach security. He couldn’t make out what the man said but it made the woman even angrier.
Walt involuntarily unsnapped his holster.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, grabbing the man by the shoulders and spinning him around.
He wore wraparound sunglasses and carried a white cane in his right hand.
He pulled away, stumbled, and nearly fell over a loose bag. Walt steadied him, apologizing and introducing himself in alternating strokes.
The man was blind.
“What’s the problem here?” he asked finally.
The passenger composed himself. “I asked to see my dog. He’s a service dog. I shouldn’t be made to wait.”
“I’ve explained to him, Sheriff,” the woman said, “that no one besides us can go back there, sir.”
“Your dog’s back there?”
He nodded vigorously. “They required me to kennel him and to check him like baggage. They made me sign a release because of the July heat. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
“We can do that,” Walt said. “But we’re going to have to do it inside at baggage claim. She’s just doing her job: No one’s allowed back there.”
Walt glanced over his shoulder, wondering how many passengers he’d missed during this encounter. He hoped Brandon had gotten a good look.
“You’re the sheriff? Seriously?” The blind man sounded amused. A wry smile overcame him.
“ Blaine County sheriff. Yes. Let’s take this inside. Okay?”
“Rafe Nagler.” He switched hands with the cane and stuck his right hand out into space. Walt took hold and they shook hands. “I’m here for the Cutter conference. There’s supposed to be someone here to pick me up.”
“We’ll get it sorted out. Can I offer you…?” Walt took him by the elbow.
The blind man allowed himself to be led. “Thank you, Sheriff.”
“I’m sorry for the confusion,” he said. “Your first time here?”
“Yes. I’ve heard wonderful things. Did you know there’s a ski program for the visually impaired?”
“Not this time of year,” Walt said.
“No.” Nagler smiled. “Maybe not. But kayaking, and rock climbing.”
“Kayaking? Seriously?”
Nagler leaned his head back and laughed, showing his teeth. “I’m bullshitting you,” he said. “But the rock climbing’s for real.”
Walt grinned but of course the man couldn’t see it. Then he faked a laugh, which sounded stupid.
“I’ve never attended the Cutter conference, but it’s said to be the single most important such meeting in the country.”
“Patrick Cutter knows how to throw a party,” Walt confirmed.
“The Journal called it the most influential three days to the communications business,” Nagler said.
“Sounds right.”
“Called Patrick Cutter a kingmaker. Disney bought ABC as a result of this conference. Brighton Distilleries acquired a film studio and changed its entire business plan.”
“And you are?”
“A dreary professor invited to bore the executives for an hour on Saturday.”
“I doubt that.”
Walt pulled open and held the door, the air-conditioning catching in his throat, a welcome relief. He eagerly scanned the interior. Brandon was nowhere to be seen.
“Do you see Ricky’s kennel?” Nagler asked.
“Oversized items are delivered at the far end.”
“I’m good now, Sheriff, thank you.” Nagler extended his cane and gently broke Walt’s grip.
He negotiated his way through a minefield of pulled luggage and impatient passengers.
Walt rose to his toes and saw Brandon standing alone. No suspect. Anxiety flooded him. This was the perfect place to identify and arrest a possible hit man arriving to kill Shaler. Right here and now. The contrarian in him wanted to believe that the murder victim in Salt Lake City had been the intended target, that the job was over and done. That the feds had gotten it wrong. That he and O’Brien and Dryer had nothing more to worry about. This was how Cutter would spin it. Possibly Dryer along with him.
Time worked against him. Baggage arrived, sliding down the short, stainless steel chute with a jarring bang. Like cows at a feeding trough, the passengers approached and nudged one another aside.
The crowded space became more chaotic with passengers wielding bags. The terminal’s automatic doors clapped open and shut. Walt spun a full circle, his frustration mounting. Another few minutes and the terminal would be all but empty.
He signaled Brandon and caught his attention. The two men stepped outside in concert, each through a different door. Together they inspected the parking lot for anyone who’d managed to slip past unnoticed.
Brandon stood by the taxi stand and hotel/van pickup. He leaned his head into several of the vehicles, scanning the boarding passengers.
Over Walt’s radio came Brandon ’s voice. “I’ve got zilch.”
“Ditto,” Walt replied.
“Hang on…we’ve got a situation inside,” Brandon announced.
Walt turned and hurried back into the terminal.
A wall of onlookers blocked Walt’s view. He crossed the room and forced his way through the small crowd that had gathered. At the same time, Brandon reached the center of the huddle.
It was Nagler, the blind man again, kneeling on the floor in front of a cream-colored kennel. He was crying, or cursing, patting the floor violently, feeling for his cane. Catching it with his right hand, he lifted it roughly as if to whip the confused baggage handler. Walt jumped forward and grabbed the man’s forearm and peeled the cane from his fingers.
“Hold it!” Walt said sternly.
“Sheriff?” Nagler’s face was flushed and splotchy. The sunglasses had slipped down his nose, giving Walt a fleeting glimpse of a milky eye with no iris, no pupil. Only a sickening, yellow-white bulb.
“There’s been a tragic accident,” the baggage handler said.
“Bullshit!” Nagler said. “They killed my dog. They killed Ricky!”
“The heat,” the handler said. She fingered a large neon orange tag attached to the kennel’s metal grate door. “The release spells it all out.”
“You think I read your stupid release?” Nagler shouted. “Is it in Braille? Give me a break! They said it was a formality, an insurance thing. That it was a short flight-an hour-and that people flew their pets all the time.”
“It’s true, they do,” the baggage handler said. “But it’s the middle of the day, sir. And a hot one at that. And-”
“My dog is dead,” he wailed. “Do you have any idea-”
“There’s nothing more to be gained here,” Walt said. “We’re sorry for your loss. Let’s get you to where you’re going. Get you settled.”
“Settled? I’m not leaving Ricky.”
“We’ll get him to the local vet. You can decide how you want to…handle things from there. Didn’t you say someone was meeting you?”
“That would be me.” A twenty-something woman with a fresh face and freckles stepped out of the small crowd. “Karen Platt. I’m a greeter for C3. I’m Mr. Nagler’s greeter. His driver.” She turned toward Nagler. “I am, like, so sorry about the dog. Ohmygod, I can’t imagine…”
Nagler came to his feet. Walt placed the cane back into the man’s hand.
“Promise me you won’t hit anyone with that,” Walt said.
“Ricky and I…,” Nagler said but was unable to finish. He threw his head back, looked to the ceiling, and took a deep breath. “You have no idea.”
“We’ll see if we can’t do something. Maybe we can find a dog for the weekend.”
“It doesn’t work like that. Ricky and I have been together six years.”
“Maybe we can do something.”
“Did you check any luggage, sir?” Brandon spoke up, his low voice drawing Nagler’s attention. Ever the practical one; always thinking ahead.
Nagler fumbled in his back pocket and pulled out a ticket sleeve. Stapled to the inside of the sleeve was a bag tag. He handed it in Brandon ’s direction. Brandon took it and passed it to Nagler’s driver. She went down the line of the few remaining bags and, checking baggage strips, pulled out a hard-shelled Samsonite.
“No one read me the release,” Nagler muttered. He swung his cane out in front of him, but without the energy that had fed his initial anger. “Where’s the car? Ricky could have gotten me out of here just fine.” He tested the area with the cane and made his way slowly, Karen Platt dragging his suitcase.
Brandon shut the wire door and hoisted the dog kennel like it was a loaf of bread. “Tough break,” he said to Walt.
Walt glanced around, having almost forgotten about their suspect. He felt the weight of defeat.
Elton John’s “ Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ” leaked out of speakers in the ceiling.
Shit, he thought: He’d have that tune stuck in his head the rest of the day.
R afe Nagler pulled himself out of the Volvo, his white cane at his side. A voice summoned in a thick Eastern European accent. The man sounded big. He grabbed Nagler firmly by the arm.
“Welcome to the Sun Valley Lodge.”
“Thank you.” Nagler swung his cane. The bellman took him by the arm. “Lodge or inn?” he asked, as he was led up some stairs. “I thought the conference is at the Sun Valley Inn.”
“Actually, we offer the two hotels: the lodge, which is where you are now-more upscale and geared for entertainment; and the inn, just across the pond, that provides additional rooms and houses our conference and banquet facilities.”
Karen Platt, his driver, called out that she’d take care of his bag. She sounded both anxious and nervous, as she had been for the twenty-minute ride from the airport, and the half hour spent at the vet making arrangements for Ricky’s cremation.
“Would you describe the lobby to me, please, with twelve o’clock straight ahead?” Nagler said to the bellman as they entered the hotel.
“Of course. It’s a big room, almost two rooms connected by a hall-way running nine o’clock to three o’clock. It’s large. Grand. There’s an alcove immediately to our right-registration desk. Concierge is ahead-one o’clock-at a large desk, mahogany or cherry with a leather top. There are some columns between here and there. Square; wood-paneled. Eleven o’clock, two more columns. Double doors at twelve o’clock far at the end of the lobby that lead outside to the patio. Down the hallway I mentioned are some wonderful photographs, historic photographs of the lodge and its famous guests: Marilyn Monroe, Bobby Kennedy, Jimmy Stewart, some presidents. Perhaps I can describe some of them to you during your stay.”
“I’d like that,” Nagler said.
“The Duchin Lounge is at eleven o’clock, near the doors to the patio,” he continued. “There are two couches and several chairs between where we are and the Duchin Lounge. A coffee table. The entrance to Gretchen’s, breakfast and lunch, is behind the concierge.”
“At one o’clock,” Nagler said.
“Yes, sir. Very good.”
Nagler turned right. “Registration?”
“You’re a quick learner.”
“You work with what you’re given. That scraping sound beyond the patio doors?”
“The outdoor skating rink.”
“An outdoor skating rink in July?”
“Exactly! Unbelievable, eh? We are famous for our weekend ice shows. Very important skaters.”
The desk receptionist had a French accent and handled his reservation with aplomb. She retrieved a leather tote bag for him loaded with gifts from the C3. She noted mention of his service dog.
“There’s been an accident,” Nagler said, his voice tight. “Ricky’s not with us.”
The receptionist and the bellman both offered their condolences.
Nagler and the bellman rode the elevator to the third floor, discussing the hotel’s history and construction.
They arrived at the room and the bellman admitted him. Nagler pulled a bill from his left pants pocket and handed it to the man. Left pocket: tens. Right pocket: ones.
“Listen,” Nagler said, after following the bellman’s quick description of the room’s layout. “Ricky, my dog, was my eyes. I’ve grown quite dependent on him. It’s not that I can’t negotiate with my cane-of course I can-but I’m out of practice. If you could pass word around to the staff…” He offered another three tens into the air and they were accepted.
“It will be our pleasure to make your stay as enjoyable and comfortable as possible. I’ll pass the word.”
Nagler’s bag arrived. The bellman placed it on a stand and offered to unpack it. Nagler declined.
As the bellman retreated toward the door, Nagler stopped him, saying, “There’s a movie theater, isn’t there?”
“The Opera House. Yes.”
“Does it run a matinee, by any chance?”
“Sun Valley Serenade shows every day at five.”
“Sonja Henie and John Payne with Glenn Miller. Excellent.”
“Can I escort you over?”
“Yes, please.”
“Around four forty-five?”
“That would be perfect.”
“See you then. The name is Karl, sir.”
“Thank you, Karl, for everything.”
“My pleasure, sir. I’ll see you later this afternoon.” The door clicked shut. Nagler was alone. He locked the door and threw the security lock; he then felt his way into the bathroom, closed the door, and locked this as well. He located the sink, closed the drain, and washed and dried his hands. He removed the mirrored sunglasses and, with his left index finger, held his eyebrow firm as he pulled down his lower lid with the other hand, exposing his eye-a bloodshot, yellowish orb. Then he pinched the surface of his eyeball and removed the contact lens.
And he could see again.
D anny Cutter made two mistakes: The first was to look it in the eye; the second was to turn and run from it.
He’d been struggling at the time to catch up. He’d hooked into a snag off the western bank of the narrow Big Wood River. At first he’d thought it was a submerged branch, because he’d felt a little give as he tugged on the fly rod; but then, with no more give left in it, he was thinking rock: that the Adam’s fly, intended to float, had nonetheless dipped below the surface and was currently tangled in some green moss adhered to a rock. Far in the recesses of his angler’s mind lurked the distant possibility that he was actually onto a fish-a lunker-and that it had “sat down” and was awaiting his next move; so he moved toward it. But a moment later, he was certain he’d snagged.
He wanted to catch up with Fiona, the guide, and Liz Shaler, now about thirty yards downstream, for two very different reasons. Liz was an important friend; Fiona was hot. Never mind that a pair of Secret Service agents, one on each side of the river, crept through the thick underbrush and shadowed the attorney general as best as possible. Never mind the ease with which they’d eavesdrop on any conversation, given the amazing quiet of the river. He could work around that.
Fiona had led them across a private bridge to a secluded estate hidden deep within the Starweather subdivision. They were mid-valley, about five miles north of Hailey.
The river turned slightly east about a half mile down. The water was knee deep and moving swiftly, the bottom rocky, uneven, and slippery. It was framed within walls of towering cottonwood trees on either side, broken by stands of aspen, tangles of chokecherry, and the colorful shock of golden willow.
Slowly, the group in front of him moved in unison downriver. He stepped carefully toward his snagged fly.
Reaching it, he slipped his hand underwater and followed the taut line. He pricked his finger on the sharp hook and happened to glance up.
A cougar. Less than ten yards away.
For an instant he was stunned-awed-by the sight. Then something more primordial kicked in as he realized he was too close.
The cat was poised, ready to pounce. To strike.
This wasn’t a Discovery Channel moment: She was hunting, and he was meat.
He turned and ran, splashing forward, slipping on the mossy stones, sucking the waders heavily out of the water.
Down the river, the sound drew the attention of the others, who turned hopefully, expecting to see Danny Cutter in control of some massive trout. Instead they saw him stumbling frantically across the river, aimed slightly downriver to allow the current to help his movement. His running was awkward and urgent.
“Bees,” Fiona Kenshaw said. “He got into-” But she cut herself off as the cougar burst offshore into the river as if running on the surface, her paws weightless, her flight graceful and undisturbed.
“Good God!”
Danny heard the charge behind him. It sounded like a bull elephant.
In desperation, he glanced over his shoulder, turning slightly upstream. With this motion, his rod moved like a whip. With the cougar one pounce away from striking, the graphite tip of the nine-foot rod sharply struck the cat on the nose.
The animal dropped its head and went head over heels-a half flip that threw a shower of water at Danny and knocked him down into the river.
The cougar took off in the opposite direction without an ounce of lost momentum. It hit the shore in full stride, blurred into the tawny grasses, and vanished, living up to its nickname: ghost of the Rockies.
Cutter lost his rod as his waders filled. Fishermen drowned in less water, unable to regain balance, victimized by the panic and the weight of water-filled waders. Danny aimed his feet and legs downstream. He used the current to help him stand. Chilled to shivering, he staggered toward the river’s edge and collapsed onto terra firma, winded and dazed.
Somehow-miraculously-he’d escaped a cougar attack. He was alive. Unhurt. He took it as an omen, an arbitrary warning of the preciousness of life. And he swore to God it would not go unheeded.
W alt’s office door swung open, followed by a strong wind that turned out to be his sister-in-law, Myra. She, of the nervous constitution and skeletal frame.
Her voice could crack glass. “What if you showed Kevin one of those horrible shots of a car all smashed up by a drunken teenager? Maybe that would shock him into thinking straight. Maybe he’d forget about those canyon parties. Or maybe you could lock him up for an afternoon, you know, right here in your jail, and show him what that’s like if you’re busted for drugs. He’s your nephew after all.”
“I’ll take care of it, Myra, I’ll speak to him,” Walt said without turning from his computer. “You can go now.”
“Am I interrupting?”
He knew that voice. He angled to see Fiona just behind Myra, who blocked the door. Fiona wore the small tight T-shirt and hiking shorts he’d seen her in earlier, though her hair looked worse for wear and her face was shiny with sunscreen.
“I called you,” Walt reminded. “How could you be interrupting? Myra? Anything else? Good. Then get out of the doorway and let her in.”
Myra was none too subtle about looking Fiona up and down and then glancing back to Walt judgmentally.
“ Myra!” Walt chastised.
But Myra couldn’t help herself. “I like what you’ve done with the uniforms,” she told him. Then she added, “You’d better call Kevin.”
“Out!”
She huffed off.
Fiona entered, slack-jawed.
“My brother’s widow,” Walt explained, “has installed me as a surrogate father-sometimes an awkward fit.”
“I had a stepmother I hated,” she said, sliding into a captain’s chair that faced his desk in the impossibly small office. She kept her legs extended. Long legs, made longer by the shorts, but cut off by the desk, which was something Walt regretted.
“Thanks for saving me,” he said.
“Anytime.”
“I called because-”
“You need help with some photos. You explained over the phone.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“Danny Cutter was nearly killed by a cougar.”
“You want to run that by me again?”
She explained her witnessing the attack from thirty yards downriver.
“We packed up and came back early, and Danny headed off to lunch with his brother. Men. You can’t really just pick back up like that, can you? Let me tell you something; if that had happened to me, the first thing I’d have done is spend half the day on the phone telling anyone who’d listen. Then I’d have a long hot bath, or two. And then a bottle of wine. Or two. Business as usual? Forget it!”
“That’s two attacks in ten days. The yellow Lab…”
“I shot the photos, remember? That was disgusting. You ought to do something about it.”
“The cougar? Not my department. Fish and Game. But you’re right: They should certainly hear about the attack on Danny.”
“What do you think of him?”
“Danny? He’s okay.”
“Not professionally. I know you busted him. I mean as a person.”
“Don’t really know him. Kind of difficult to separate the two.”
“But first impressions?” she asked.
“He asked you out,” Walt stated.
“Yeah. Is that bad?”
Walt knew Danny Cutter as a womanizing playboy who’d had a two-thousand-dollar-a-week cocaine habit prior to the bust. He thought the cocaine part had gone away. He wasn’t sure the other part ever changed. He liked the man in spite of his criminal record.
“We got some crime-scene photos from Salt Lake,” he told her. “Pretty gruesome stuff. But they’re lousy photos. I’d like to enlarge some, crop and zoom some others. Above my skill set.”
She looked out the top of her eyes at him and said disdainfully, “I see.”
“I need them pretty quickly.”
“It’s a date, is all.”
“A guy named Capshaw-TSA down in Salt Lake -thought it important enough to send these. I have a five o’clock with everyone who’s anyone connected to C3 security. But as I said, the photos are pretty heavy. If you’d rather not do them, maybe you could give me a five-minute course in Photoshop for Dummies.”
“I’ll do them myself.” She sounded angry. “Just tell me what you want.”
The surprise in the photos, especially under enlargement, was the degree of the horrors. The victim’s fingers had been cut off with precision. Teeth had been pulled, shown in the photos with a latex-gloved thumb holding the dead man’s upper lip up over the gap. But worst of all: The face was disfigured and both eyes had been carved out of the sockets. Fiona battled her way through the work.
“None of my business,” she said, “but why do you even want these? You realize they’re far more disgusting as close-ups, right? But evidence is evidence. You can see everything in the originals, so I don’t get it.”
“Can you load them into PowerPoint and burn a disk for me?”
“Of course I can. But it won’t make them any easier to take.”
“What is it they say about first impressions?” Walt asked rhetorically.
“You’re a diseased individual,” she said.
“But you’d watch it?” he tested.
“Of course I would. But I’m sick that way. Like you.”
“This goes no further than this office.” He paused to make sure he had her attention. “There’s been a credible threat on Liz Shaler’s life.” He watched as the shock registered. “At first I wondered if this killing in Salt Lake might be related. Happened this morning-less than eight hours ago. But once I saw these, once I went through what you just went through, it was no longer if, but how.”
“Jesus. This guy’s here?”
He lowered his voice. “Now I need to get several others to make that same jump.”
C ristina’s lunch crowd had thinned out an hour earlier, leaving only a few tables occupied on the restaurant’s back deck at 3:30. The wait staff, dressed in all black, hurried about servicing the remaining tables.
“A cougar? Are you sure?” Patrick Cutter wore a pink golf shirt with the C3 logo embroidered on the breast. He focused intently across the table at his brother.
“Of course I’m sure. Give me a break!”
“Did you tell anyone?” Patrick asked.
“I got out of the shower about ten minutes ago. Besides, in case you’ve missed the news: I’m not overly eager to spend time with Walt Fleming.”
“Walt could have been a lot harder on you.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“What about Liz? She’s all right?”
Danny set down his fork, eyed his brother with disbelief. “I almost get mauled by a cougar, and all you can think about is your keynote speaker?”
Patrick pursed his lips.
“Fear not, Paddy: She’s all yours. She’s going to give her talk, announce her candidacy, and your precious conference will go down in history. Congratulations.”
Patrick shook his head but not a hair moved.
“That is what it’s all about, right?” Danny asked. “How many millions of your own money do you spend on this thing? And for what? A little respect? You’re the Rodney Dangerfield of Wall Street, Paddy. The sad thing is, nobody has the balls to tell you.”
“If it was all about my vanity, would Bill Gates attend? Warren Buffett? Ian Cumming? The conference serves its purpose or I wouldn’t do it.”
“That money could be put to better use.”
“Says the man who can’t hold on to a dime. You’re hardly one to talk. You’re off fishing and chasing tail when you’re still ten short on your angel round.”
“It irks you, doesn’t it? My turning you down?” Danny asked, his tone softened.
“The offer still stands,” Patrick said.
“And it’s an incredibly generous one, but one I can’t accept.”
“It just seems to me-”
“Don’t start! Please.” Danny placed his napkin on the table and pushed his plate away, growing more serious.
“Keeping it in the family-”
“And I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Of course you can,” Patrick said. “You choose not to. There’s a big difference.”
“I choose not to because you’ve bailed me out of every one of my screwups for as long as I can remember. Not that this is a screwup. It’s not. For once I’ve got a chance at something that could actually work. And your help with the business plan-”
“Was minimal.”
“It was not minimal. There you go again. Don’t do that. You helped, and I’m grateful, but when it comes to financing it, I’ve got to do it myself. You’re the one with all the right gut instincts. You don’t become a billionaire on luck. I’ve got to do this, Paddy. That’s all. You know that feeling when you know you’re right.”
“Then at least start with Stu Holms. This fits right into his latest round of acquisitions.”
Danny joked, “Don’t tell that to Liz. She’ll slap another antitrust suit on him.”
“Heaven help us,” Patrick said.
“Any tricks to Stuart Holms? Other than not mentioning Liz Shaler?”
Patrick grinned and stabbed at the slices of chicken in his salad. “He’s old school. You won’t get a second chance. Practice on Sharples and Jenkins. Save Holms for when you’re ready. You’ve got several strong talking points: Trilogy has done well regionally; the push to national distribution isn’t that big a stretch; lean on the fact that the big bottlers filter the water and that your source is two miles deep. Stu likes a good story, so don’t be shy. He’ll appreciate the evolution and growth. You’ve done a good job, Danny. That’ll mean something to him. You won the trademark on ‘organic water.’ That’s huge. He’ll see the value. Save that for last.”
“All good stuff,” Danny said.
Patrick dripped some dressing onto his shirt.
Danny couldn’t help himself. “The pink shirt doesn’t work, Paddy. You look like you’re wearing house insulation.”
“You think?” Patrick blushed, tugged on his shirt, and then looked around the restaurant self-consciously.
Danny saw surprise register on his brother’s face, just before he heard the warm, soothing voice behind him.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in. Hey, you two.”
Ailia Holms was strong and fit, like so many of the Sun Valley women. Soon to be middle-aged, with a body that peeled off ten years, she held back a restless playfulness. Her red hair forewarned her personality. She was a comfortable flirt in a bright green top and Oilily stretch pants that cleaved to her backside as she bent to peck Patrick on the cheek.
“Speak of the devil,” Patrick said.
She faux-patted the top of her head, taking advantage of the moment to show off the latest augmentation to her breasts. “Devil? Are my horns showing?”
She gave Danny an awkward hug that perhaps intentionally thrust her breasts into his chin. “Long time no see, stranger.”
“True story.”
“Everything good?” Ailia asked unflinchingly.
“For a guy who just spent fourteen months in Club Fed, you mean?”
“I don’t care where you’ve been, Danny. It’s good to see you, is all. You look good.”
“And you.”
“So…Ailia…” Patrick said. “Tell us about London.”
“We didn’t go, as it turns out. Stu got hung up with some deal. Surprise.”
“You’ve been here…all along?” Patrick asked. Danny was suprised by the obvious disappointment on his brother’s face.
“We knew you’d be busy preparing for the conference. Looks like a great one, by the way. Elizabeth Shaler! You waited long enough to announce that!”
Patrick reached for a chair from an empty table. Ailia waved away the offer.
“I’d love to, but I can’t stay. Stu’s waiting.” She leaned into Danny a second time and pecked him on the cheek. “See you tonight, I hope,” she whispered.
She gave Patrick an air kiss. “Looking forward to tonight,” and hurried off.
Both men tracked her through the tables.
“Don’t go there,” Patrick cautioned. “You’re damn lucky Stu never found out about you two the first time.”
“Who said he didn’t?”
“Stu is many things but charitable is not one of them. Nor is he forgiving.”
“I thought the whole town knew.”
“Apparently not.”
Patrick flagged a busboy. “We’ll take the check.”
The scrawny kid turned around and clearly recognized him. “Ah…yes, sir.” He lingered a little longer. “You’re Mr. Cutter, right?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m all over the G-six.” He patted his pocket.
“Did you opt for multiplayer?” Patrick asked.
“It’s bitchin’.”
“Kevin?” Cristina, the proprietor, called from the next table. She’d overheard.
“Check,” Kevin said to her, spinning around to tend to the vacated table.
Danny asked his brother, “The G-six?”
“A gaming cell phone. Multiuser over EVDO-high-speed wireless. Teens are our fastest-growing market.”
“You never stop.”
Patrick took it as a compliment.
“You really think the pink doesn’t work?”
W ith the contact lenses removed, his full vision restored, Milav Trevalian studied the mirrored reflection of Rafe Nagler. The corners of his lips twisted up, stretching the theatrical facial hair glued to his face, a grin of satisfaction for having made it through the loss of the dog.
Ricky was no prop; he needed the dog. He’d also left his backpack behind, a calculated risk necessitated by the incompetence of the airline. The Brasilia ’s lack of overhead baggage space had required all passengers to gate-check their carry-ons. But either the Salt Lake or Sun Valley ground crews had mixed it in with the checked baggage. When it failed to appear on the pickup cart, Trevalian had lost his temper, quickly changing horses and directing his rage at the baggage handlers. With the unexpected loss of the dog, and the sheriff all over him, he’d feared trying to recover the backpack. This, because he couldn’t be sure if he hadn’t left an old airline identity tag attached to it. With the opaque contacts in place, making him truly blind (he carried two sets, one translucent), he hadn’t been able to see if there was a tag there or not. He couldn’t afford close scrutiny so the bag and its contents had been left behind.
Trevalian unpacked Nagler’s suitcase, tried on the unfamiliar clothes, and discovered the dead man’s shirts fit fine; the pants, though big in the waist, could be made to work with the help of a belt. He noticed small bumps of thread had been sewn into tight knots on the insides of the back pockets of the pants-Braille-like personal codes allowing Nagler to determine color. He found the same hand-sewn bumps on the shirttails, and also on the socks.
He unpacked the man’s clothes into the dresser drawers, hung shirts and pants in the closet, and spread items from the toilet kit on the bathroom counter. He even smeared some toothpaste to imitate the man missing his toothbrush.
Still contemplating a way around the death of the dog, he settled down onto the bed and lay back. Waiting came easy for him. Milav Trevalian had the patience of a saint.
I t felt strange to enter his own vehicle as a guest, but the Secret Service would occupy the Blaine County Sheriff Office’s Mobile Command Center-the MCC-for the next four days.
A rock-and-roll tour bus confiscated in a drug bust and remodeled and equipped with every conceivable trick, the MCC was currently parked in front of the post office in the obnoxiously large parking lot that fronted the Sun Valley resort.
Deputy Special Agent in Charge Scott Ramsey sat behind a laptop computer in one of two opposing booths. Behind him hung a seating chart for the inn’s ballroom, each seat labeled with a guest name.
Ramsey gave Walt a nod. Three other agents stood and scattered into the back of the bus, from where Walt could hear a live feed of CNN.
Ramsey had the thick neck and shoulders of a steroid user.
“Dryer’s on-site in the hotel but busy at the moment. I told you that over the phone.”
“Let’s make him unbusy, if we can.”
“Not possible. How can I help you?”
Walt laid the stack of photographs, cropped and printed by Fiona, down on the table.
“We have a visitor,” Walt said.
Ramsey flipped through the first five or six, his face impassive. “Give me the four-one-one.”
“ Salt Lake City airport, this morning. The victim was discovered zipped up in a body bag and hidden inside a hung ceiling in a restaurant under construction. We got lucky, I guess you could say: He was still warm. I believe his killer is the same person contracted to do Shaler.”
Ramsey continued flipping through the photos. “Glad I ate a while ago.”
“I can take these directly to the attorney general, but I thought I owed Special Agent Dryer the courtesy of a conversation. If you say that’s not important, then that’s not important. Thanks for your time.” He scooped up the photos, turned around in the small space, offering Ramsey his back.
Ramsey stood. “Hang on.” He squeezed past Walt and led him into the Sun Valley Inn, the resort’s conference hotel.
Walt felt color rise as he recognized snippets of conversation flood down the hall from one of the conference rooms. He rounded a corner and was greeted by a parade of familiar faces just leaving a meeting. Some of the men stopped to shake hands with him.
“Better late than never, Sheriff,” someone called out.
“Nothing like missing your own meeting,” a familiar but unidentified voice said.
Reflexively, Walt double-checked his watch, though he already knew the time. The security orientation meeting wasn’t scheduled for another forty-five minutes and here it was breaking up.
W alt entered the stuffy conference room prepared for a turf battle with Adam Dryer. He was entirely unprepared for what he saw: his father.
The two men sat next to each other at a linen-covered table on a dais at the end of the boxy conference room. The dais was raised a foot off the floor facing rows of portable chairs separated by a center aisle, reminding Walt of a courtroom, and he the attorney pleading his case.
Jerry Fleming lifted his head and met his son’s surprised stare. “I left a message.”
Walt checked his cell phone: There was no message indicator.
“That’s bullshit,” Walt said.
Jerry Fleming served as director of security for Avicorps out of Seattle, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer. He’d taken the job and its six-figure salary, a detail he loved to mention to Walt.
“Who moved the five o’clock?” Walt asked.
Jerry answered, not Dryer. “The cocktail party at Cutter’s tonight put a little hitch in our giddyup. It was in everyone’s best interest to advance it an hour.”
“The five o’clock was my meeting. Mine and O’Brien’s. You have no say in this.”
“Apparently I do,” Jerry said.
“Your father brought us intel that First Rights is planning to protest the conference.” Adam Dryer made every attempt to make this sound of the utmost importance. “I left you a message on your cell phone about the meeting being advanced.”
Walt gave him a look.
“Careful, son,” Jerry Fleming said.
“You stay out of this,” Walt said.
“Wish that I could. My company’s going to have people at the cocktail party, and the five o’clock didn’t give me and my team time to get in place. A conference like this is fluid, son. You know that.”
His father was a fount of security clichés.
“You want fluid? Try piss and vinegar.”
“The presence of First Rights requires additional planning,” Dryer said.
“The WTO in Seattle? That First Rights?” Walt asked.
“The same,” Dryer said.
Walt now stepped forward and placed the Salt Lake photos in front of Dryer, who gravely flipped through the stack, passing each photograph on to Jerry Fleming.
“Son of a bitch,” Jerry said, meeting eyes with his son. “This is Salt Lake?” He scrutinized the photographs. “Organized mind. Experienced with a knife. Late twenties, early thirties. Single.”
“It isn’t a serial killer, Dad. It’s a hit man.”
“I’ve hunted them, son,” Jerry said. “All you’ve done is study them.”
“The upside,” Dryer said, raising his voice and making a conscious effort to separate father and son, “is that clearly our intel was wrong. When and if this dead guy’s ever IDed, what do you want to bet his initials come back AG? We got all worked up over nothing.”
“And this ‘hit,’” Walt said, drawing the quotes, “just happens to occur a couple hundred miles south of where AG Shaler is giving a speech? Give me a break! The intel’s solid. The planning for the body bag is the kicker. That should bother us, because it’s an indication of premeditation.” He paused, allowing that to sink in. “This kill confirms the intel. We need to know the victim’s identity-fast-and his role in this, because the man behind that knife is on his way here, or is here already.”
“You’re entitled to your opinions, Sheriff,” Dryer said. “But until we have the identification, until we have any kind of evidence connecting this kill to the conference, it would be irresponsible to initiate hysteria over what might be nothing.”
“‘Initiate hysteria’?” Walt asked. “You want another look at those photos? This guy is a pro-whoever he is, whatever his purpose-and he’s within three hundred miles of here. All I’m saying is we’d better sit up and take notice.”
Jerry interrupted the debate, saying, “There’s a cocktail party in a little over two hours, and First Rights intends to march on this conference. Where’s our focus? On a city three hundred miles south of here, in another state, or on the business at hand?”
“I need route clearance and a two-vehicle escort from the AG’s residence to Patrick Cutter’s residence, on or about six forty-five P.M.,” Dryer informed Walt.
“It’s already on the itinerary. You’ll have your escort.” Walt stepped up onto the dais to collect the photographs. “I want to show these to Liz Shaler.”
“Out of the question,” Dryer barked out quickly.
“She deserves to understand the degree of the threat.”
“The AG is my responsibility,” Dryer reminded.
“She’s speaking at the conference and that puts her with me. Are we really going to get into this?”
“If you want a few minutes with her, I’ll arrange it. But no photographs. No one should see these who doesn’t have to.”
Walt took this as a minor victory. “Thank you,” he said.
Jerry Fleming made a show of checking his watch. “I’ve got to get moving. Walt, let’s do this at the party.”
“Cutter doesn’t want uniforms present,” Walt reminded.
“So lose the uniform,” Dryer said. “Meet me at the cocktail party, Sheriff. You and the AG will step out for a minute. See if you can come up with a game plan for First Rights by then. We’ve got to hit this proactively.”
“See you at seven,” Walt said.
A knock came on the hotel room door at 4:44. Before answering, Trevalian unlocked the dead bolt on the door that connected to the adjacent room, knowing he would need this later. He then rechecked his appearance-the face of the man, Rafe Nagler, in the bathroom mirror. Satisfied, he grabbed his cane and answered the door.
“Here to take you to the movie, sir.”
Trevalian wore Nagler’s wraparound sunglasses, but not the opaque contact lenses. The lenses he now wore provided a horrid sight, if anyone caught a glimpse of his eyes, but allowed him to see, though a little muddier than usual. Karl turned out to be a brute of a man, well over six feet, with wide shoulders, a big brow, and deeply recessed eyes. He led Trevalian by the elbow out into the heat and sunshine, along beautifully landscaped paths and past an outdoor mall of boutiques. To the north, the Pioneer mountain range, tipped with snowfields, rose like the Alps.
Karl bought him a ticket and, at his request, showed him to a seat in the back row of the Opera House theater. A large auditorium that seated four hundred. Its seats faced a production-sized stage, in the middle of which hung a commercial movie screen. Rows of exit doors flanked the seats on both sides. The washrooms were not out in the foyer but instead accessed at the back of the hall, behind where Trevalian now sat. Karl offered to arrange for someone to meet him later, but Nagler politely declined.
As the film started, Trevalian counted seven others in the cavernous theater-two families, both sitting much closer to the distant screen. He casually checked behind himself: The red velvet curtains were pulled across the entrance to the lobby.
Fifteen minutes into the movie, Nagler slipped off to the men’s room and locked the door. He removed and pocketed the facial hair and wig. He left the stall to wash the coloring out of his eyebrows and lashes at the sink. Five minutes after entering the men’s room, he departed one of the side doors as Milav Trevalian, his white cane collapsed and tucked into his sock.
Sun Valley’s pedestrian mall included a bookstore, a minimarket, a gallery, and several ski and apparel shops that in the summer carried mountain biking garb, white rafting paraphernalia, backpacking supplies, as well as T-shirts, sweatshirts, ball caps, and golf goodies. Trevalian paid cash for a small overnight bag, some T-shirts, and two pairs of chinos that would fit him better than Nagler’s wardrobe. At the minimarket he bought toothpaste, a toothbrush, some deodorant, and a razor.
He headed back to the lodge.
“Checking in?” asked the young blonde, whose name tag read Hannah, Prague, Czech Republic. Trevalian could have spoken fluent Czech to her, but he resisted showing off.
“Meisner.” Trevalian supplied the name the reservation was booked under and slid across a valid credit card also in Meisner’s name. “I requested a room that-”
“Yes. I have it right here,” she said, running her finger across the screen. “We were able to accommodate your request. Your room communicates with Mr. Nagler’s.”
“My friend is sight-challenged,” Trevalian explained. “When I realized we were both going to be here-”
“Yes, of course.” After he filled out the register she handed him a key.
“May I have one of our bellmen-”
“No, thank you.”
“Enjoy your stay.”
Trevalian thanked her and crossed to the elevator, rode it to the third floor, then let himself into the room rented to Meisner. Less than a minute later, with the hallway door locked and secured, he opened the shared door that connected to Nagler’s room. He could come and go now as he pleased, under the guise of either identity.
Trevalian pulled a cold beer from the minibar and cracked it open. He worked the television remote, disappointed the lodge did not offer adult in-room movies, and flipped to CNN.
Both the dog and the missing backpack were problems requiring solutions. But he’d established the two identities; he had the connecting rooms.
Calling from the Meisner room, Trevalian arranged for a rental car through the weekend.
He had errands to run in Ketchum.
He had a bomb to build.
I n the middle of arranging for barricades to help control the expected protests from First Rights, Walt was alerted by Tommy Brandon of an unexpected complication.
“You’re not going to like this, Sheriff,” Brandon began. He’d elected to call Walt on his office phone, rather than relay any message through dispatch, telegraphing that secrecy was an issue. “But I went back onto the Taylor Crabtree surveillance after the airport, and I just followed him to one seventy-two Northridge. That’s Myra ’s place, right?”
Walt relived his sister-in-law’s earlier intrusion into his office and her pushing him to do something about her wayward teenage son, Kevin.
“Yeah,” Walt said.
“So…what do want me to do?” Brandon asked.
Taylor Crabtree was a sixteen-year-old JD suspected of drug trafficking in meth and selling to minors like himself. He’d flunked out of Wood River High, had been given a second chance in the Silver Creek Alternative School, and had been tossed after three strikes on drug use. For the past two weeks Walt’s deputies had kept him under nearly round-the-clock surveillance. And now he’d walked in to visit Walt’s nephew.
“Take a coffee break,” Walt said. “I’ll look into it.”
“Roger that,” Brandon said. “I’m on the cell, if you want me to pick the surveillance back up.”
“I’ll call. And thanks, Tommy.”
“Far as I’m concerned,” Brandon said, “I went on the break a half hour ago. None of this goes into my report until and unless you say so.”
“Appreciate it.” Walt disconnected the call, knowing he wouldn’t condone cooking a report to favor his nephew. But if he could get a read on the situation, or break it up ahead of anything illegal, then maybe he’d spare Myra and Kevin another family disaster.
He pulled into Myra ’s driveway and opened the car door to a blast of dry heat. He shut it loudly, making a point of announcing his arrival, and then used a sliding glass window in the next-door neighbor’s house like a mirror to watch the back of Myra ’s house. He’d been fifteen once himself.
Two kids spilled out the back door like the place was on fire.
Walt took off after them: down the driveway, around the corner, past the vegetable garden and the disused swing set. He vaulted the low post-and-rail fence into a neighbor’s backyard just in time to catch one of the two escapees in profile.
“Eric!” he shouted in his best sheriff’s voice.
Two women looked up from their flower beds across the street. Walt shouted a second time.
The boy stopped.
Walt was angry with the kid for causing him to sweat through his uniform. “What the hell, Eric?”
“Kevin said we could.”
“Could what?”
“Could be there. At the house.” The boy was more out of breath than Walt. “Kevin said it was okay.”
“Kevin works Thursdays,” Walt said, testing.
“He just got back from Cristina’s. I swear we’ve been in there maybe ten minutes.”
Walt knew it was more like thirty. Kids. “We?”
The boy hesitated.
“I can check all this out,” Walt said. He looked the boy over, considered asking him to turn his pockets out. But he was afraid of what he might find. “Who was the other boy?” he asked instead, already knowing damn well. “And before you answer, remember that lying to a sheriff is a bad idea.”
Eric lowered his eyes. “Crab,” he said after a moment.
“Taylor Crabtree?” Walt paused. “Eric, the best advice I can give you is to not go places you know you shouldn’t go. You’re a good kid. You hang around a boy like Taylor Crabtree and it’s guaranteed that you’ll be seeing more of me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, go on.”
Eric took a step or two, then broke into a run.
A minute later, Kevin greeted his uncle from the far side of the screen door on the back porch. “Hey, Uncle Walt.” His lanky frame looked all the thinner with his shirt off. His pants hung below the elastic of his underwear-a fashion statement for some, but not for Kevin. No one in the family had fully processed the loss, nearly a year earlier, of Walt’s brother, Bobby. Least of all Kevin. Walt had tried to fill the void; had neglected his own family in the process; and had now paid for it with his own divorce. Walt had never been real good at getting close; perhaps Kevin read that awkwardness as something else. He’d never been receptive to Walt’s advances. The one thing that connected them was now dead, and they both reminded the other of him so much that it hurt.
“Hey, yourself,” Walt said. “Eric and Taylor Crabtree sure took off in a hurry. What was that about?”
He shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Maybe the cop car and the uniform didn’t help?”
“Maybe.”
“Taylor Crabtree is bad news.”
Kevin took a moment to study the places where paint had chipped from the doorjamb. “So you’ve said. Are you going to tell Mom?”
“You kidding me? You think I want to be on the receiving end of that windstorm?” He won a faint smile. “I’m going to tell her we had a talk about the keggers and that you promised me you wouldn’t drink and drive, and that you wouldn’t get high. Can you keep that promise?”
“Absolutely.”
“You know it’s my job to bust those parties, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re the last person on earth I’d ever want to arrest.”
“I got it.”
“How’s the job at Cristina’s going?”
“Good, I guess.”
“It’s shit work.”
“Yeah,” Kevin said, cracking another slight smile, “it sucks.”
“But if you hang in there, she’ll move you into the kitchen or out as a waiter. Both of those are better money, and they’re better work.”
Kevin’s face revealed his internal disconnect. Walt had seen that face before-the “oh, shit, here it comes again” look that any teenager learns to command. Walt wanted to take the kid and hug him, to hold him. He knew Myra; he didn’t imagine anyone had done that since the funeral. But something stopped him.
“Grandpa called.”
“You understand what I’m saying about Crabtree?” Walt owed it to the boy to get his point across.
“Said he was here for the long weekend, that maybe we’d have dinner or something. You, him, me, and Mom.”
“You’ve got to distance yourself from him, Kev.”
“Grandpa?” Kevin asked.
“Don’t twist things around on me. Tell me Crabtree being here had nothing to do with drugs.”
“Jesus, you’re not my father.” Kevin paused. “I suppose you want to come in and look around.” He swung open the screen door and held it.
“I’m not coming in. Shut the door.”
“What about it? Seeing Grandpa?”
“Your grandpa and I are having dinner later at the Pio. Why don’t you and your mom come up around eight for dessert?”
“Seriously?”
“I won’t be wearing my uniform.”
“That doesn’t bother me.”
“Sure it does,” Walt said.
“Yeah, kinda.”
“Eight o’clock, all right?”
“Got it.”
“Crabtree.”
“I know.”
“All right then.”
T revalian worked efficiently in the bathroom of the suite adjacent to Nagler’s. One misstep, and he’d be at the center of a fire so hot, so incendiary, that it would easily consume him and a wing of the hotel before help arrived.
The litter of packaging overflowed the wastebasket into a pile on the tile floor.
He finished assembling the Coleman camp stove. He’d removed the vent grate, allowing him to clamp and duct-tape a battery-operated fan into its rectangular hole, allowing the fan to evacuate the soon-to-be-toxin-ridden air more quickly. He lit both of the Coleman’s burners and began to hum quietly.
He inspected his various purchases. He’d bought no more than two items from a single store. Untraceable. Undetectable. Unbelievably easy. To the left of the sink he found the bottle of bleach. He broke its seal and filled a Pyrex bowl, then, with the fan running, brought it to a boil. He weighed out the table salt substitute and added it to the bleach and continued boiling until the battery tester registered FULL CHARGE. Full charge, indeed. He removed the bowl and set it to cool in the ice-filled sink. He then filtered out the crystals, recovering the bleach to boil it again. An hour later he was heating distilled water with the crystals and filtering this as well. At the end of this process of fractional crystallization, he had relatively pure potassium chlorate, which he ground to the consistency of face powder.
He melted equal parts Vaseline and wax, dissolved it over the camp stove, and then poured it over the potassium chlorate in a large Tupperware bowl. Wearing a pair of rubber gloves, he kneaded this until thoroughly mixed and set the bowl outside, in the corner of the balcony, pulling a potted plant over to conceal it.
He double-checked that the PRIVACY PLEASE tag was on the door and the dead bolt was still engaged. As a finishing touch, he angled the desk chair beneath the inside doorknob. Ensured no one could enter the Meisner room without a battering ram, he then cleaned up the bathroom, grouping the various ingredients in a brown paper bag beneath the sink.
He entered Nagler’s room, closed and locked the connecting door, pausing only briefly to once again reconsider each and every step. Lightheaded with excitement-or was it the fumes?-he proceeded to the mirror in Nagler’s bathroom and resolved himself to the patient application of the facial hair, the clothing, and finally the milky contact lenses that made him blind.
He had a party to attend.
W hat have I gotten myself into?” Liz Shaler asked Jenna, her plain-faced executive secretary who’d worked with her for nearly ten years. Liz was putting the finishing touches on her face, in front of a mirror in what had once been her parents’ bedroom.
“You’ll be fine,” Jenna assured her.
“I’m whoring, and we both know it. I might as well just spread my legs and get it over with.”
“Just don’t let the tabloids see you.”
“I’ll bet I’ve had a half dozen of these very people, or at least their companies, under some form of investigation or inquiry in the past six years. And now I’m asking them for money? How hypocritical is that?”
“You’re not asking anyone for money.”
“Give me a break.”
“You’re going to make your positions clear, and if some of these people choose to support those positions, then fine.”
“It is so much more complicated than that, and you know it. We’re tricking the system, Patrick Cutter and I, and I should know better. This kind of thing always backfires.”
“You’re doing nothing wrong, nothing illegal. We’ve vetted this six ways to Sunday. Your job is to have fun. It’s only a couple days.”
“You mean it’s my last couple of days. Feels like some kind of sentence. Everything changes Sunday morning. Don’t kid yourself about that, Jenna: everything.” She dabbed a cotton ball at the edge of her eyes. “We will not have a moment’s rest for the next fifteen months and twelve days. We are going way out on a limb here.”
“Since when have we not been out on a limb?”
“I’m comfortable as a whore? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Beats working for a living.”
The women exchanged smiles in the mirror, though Liz Shaler’s sank into a grimace. “I hope I’m not making a mistake.”
“Of course you are. But what’s the alternative?”
“I could be a ski bum,” Liz suggested.
“Or sit, bored, on a dozen boards.”
“You made your point,” Liz chided. She’d heard this often from her advisers: nowhere to go but up. “How’s this?” she asked, turning to show her face.
“A million bucks,” Jenna said.
“I hope you’re wrong,” Liz said, “because we need a hell of a lot more than that just to get out of the starting gate.”
S tanding on the U-shaped wraparound balcony that overlooked the living room of his nineteen-thousand-square-foot home, Patrick Cutter surveyed the cocktail party he’d thrown for 125 early arrivals to C3. Below him, the elite of America ’s communications industry comingled and made merry, fortified by the best champagne, liquor, and wines served in crystal flutes and heavy cut-glass tumblers. The appetizers had been created by a chef from a small Provençal gîte located two kilometers south of Gorde. Many of the guests knew one another, contributing to the lively hum of conversation that hit Patrick Cutter’s ears like music.
His wife, Trish, glanced up from a tightly knit group on the floor below. In February, she’d spent thirty thousand dollars on her face, so this was her coming-out party of sorts. She offered him no wink, no nod, no subtle smile. But the sparkle in her laser-corrected eyes said enough: a success. The conference was off to a good start.
He hoped it would shape the direction of the communications industry in the months to come. Still these changes were subtle. Sometimes they reached the front page of the Wall Street Journal. This sense of history, and his place in it as a leader, thrilled him. In three days’ time, Liz Shaler was to announce her candidacy for president at his conference. How could pride be a sin when it felt so good? Who would not forgive him that little indulgence? This conference was all about indulgence.
His gaze swept the crowd. He caught a voyeuristic glimpse down the dress of the lead violinist in the classical quartet.
Where the hell was Liz Shaler?
He spotted and tracked the unmistakable red plumage of Ailia Holms as she and her husband, Stuart, stopped and chatted to friends. He made a mental note to keep Stu away from Liz Shaler. No need for a scene. A waitress took drink orders. The group erupted in laughter. He watched as Ailia gave Stu a subtle tug, and then led him over to the head of the world’s leading manufacturer of fiber optic cable. Ailia never missed a beat.
As Stu engaged in small talk, Ailia rose to her toes seeking out their next obligation. But when she lingered a little too long in one direction, Patrick followed her gaze to its target: Danny. Alarms sounded in his head: If Ailia wanted Danny, it was for only one reason.
Patrick sought out the nearest staircase-there were six in this house-and made his move to intervene.
W alt parked the Sheriff’s Office Cherokee at the end of a long line of vehicles hugging the shoulder of Adam’s Gulch Road and headed on foot down the curving driveway, adorned with twenty-foot blue spruces and a gorgeous array of flowers, which like so much of residential Ketchum and Sun Valley had been built in the past ten years. That meant each of the towering trees had been purchased mature and transplanted. At a cost of fifteen thousand dollars per tree, it was a most conspicuous display of wealth. But nothing compared to the house itself. Fashioned from five antique New England barns, each dismantled and transported and reassembled into an interconnecting village, the compound looked like a small New England village. Two well-dressed hostesses, both wearing C3 badges, greeted Walt and offered an Orrefors crystal champagne flute bearing a frosted C3 logo. The flute bubbled with a 1990 Krug, judging by the chilled bottles just inside the front door.
“The glass is compliments of Mr. Cutter,” the blonde informed Walt.
Walt had worn a freshly pressed button-down shirt and his best pair of chinos, but knew how out of place he looked compared to the linen, poplin, and silk on display.
The front door, cut within the enormous barn door, opened into a vast space of weathered wood and glass broken into several smaller rooms. The living room’s most prominent feature was a dry stack fireplace with a six-foot-high open hearth that currently held an opulent arrangement of cut flowers and cattails. A balcony surrounded the second floor looking out onto a massive chandelier made of interconnecting antlers.
Walt tried not to stare at the women, the jewelry, the sheer blouses, the tempting necklines. Tried not to succumb to the swirl of French perfumes, the gleaming white teeth of flashing smiles, and the heady rush from the champagne. He retired the half-filled glass on a passing tray and spotted a few faces he knew, all of whom were private security, keeping to the walls or behind one of the dozen hand-hewn timber posts, allowing their employers free rein. All told, he counted four, one hovering near Bill Gates, another close to Sumner Redstone. He expected to find most of the guys out back with the rest of the help-the drivers, chefs, and personal assistants.
He looked for Liz Shaler, expecting he’d find Dryer within an arm’s length, and caught sight of Patrick Cutter coming down a staircase, looking very much like a man in a hurry attempting to look casual. In less than a minute, Walt declined offerings from four different hors d’oeuvres trays.
He watched as Cutter reached the bottom of the stairs and seemed to change directions, heading straight to the front door. Some faces turned in that direction. The buzz of conversation briefly diminished.
Walt glanced back over his shoulder. New York State Attorney General Elizabeth Shaler had arrived.
Cutter succeeded in reaching her first, though nearly out of breath.
Conversation slowly resumed. Shaler’s name echoed around the room.
Flanked by two men in blue jeans and blue blazers, one of whom was Adam Dryer, she looked right past Cutter and spotted Walt and waved. Walt wasn’t sure of etiquette. He returned a small wave, feeling the eyes of a hundred envious strangers bearing down on him.
D anny Cutter saw Ailia approaching-without Stu. Wanting to avoid any gossip, he excused himself from a group of his brother’s friends and headed to the toilet. He passed one of the bars, dodged a few greetings, cut through the library (done sumptuously in suede and African leathers) following discreet signs to the POWDER ROOM taped on doorjambs. He needed a GPS. He passed another of the directional signs, noticing that someone had already crossed out the “d” in Powder.
There had been a time when Danny had been caught up in all this himself: the show, the exaggerated lifestyle, the pretense. There had been a time-prior to the 1990s-when Sun Valley had been about skiing in the winter and hiking, tennis, or golf in the summer. But L.A. riots, earthquakes, and fires had given way to White Flight. The Hollywood set. The arrival of Attitude. The glass and steel replacing the funky log establishments on Main Street. He and his brother were a part of that sea change for the valley, and it wasn’t anything to be proud of.
Chasing sobriety was about as terrifying as being chased by a cougar. And though Danny was all for success, especially his own, he had no desire to be any of the people in this room, including his brother. Briefly, he thought he’d keep right on walking-out the back door. If he could find it.
Concerned that Ailia was looking for him, and knowing how easy it was to get caught up in her web, he kept moving. With her husband as a potential investor, he wanted to avoid complication and succeed or fail on his own.
Finding the powder room occupied, he headed up one of the many staircases. The second of the five connected barns contained a hotel kitchen and a similar sized laundry room on the ground floor, and three guest suites upstairs-living room, bedroom, bath-one of which he currently occupied. He bounded up to the top of the stairs and turned quickly toward his room. This hallway connected to the central barn’s U-shaped balcony that overlooked the living room where the cocktail party now raged. In taking the corner at the top of the stairs too quickly, he nearly knocked over a guest.
The man, who wore wraparound sunglasses, dropped a cane-a thin, white cane.
He was blind.
Danny made immediate apologies.
T revalian had found the perfect view. From the balcony he’d watched Shaler’s grand entrance. Hearing someone bounding up the stairs, he’d turned and forced a collision, to win sympathy over suspicion.
Now, on his knees, he patted the floor searching for his cane, even though he could see it to his right.
“Sorry.” The man who’d knocked into him was profoundly good-looking, and polite in his supplication.
“No problem,” he said, moving tentatively toward the stairs and grasping for the handrail.
“You’re a long way from the party,” the man observed.
“Bird’s-eye view.” Trevalian openly smirked at his own joke. “I was taking the dime tour.” He was now halfway down the stairs, and with the man behind him he couldn’t risk observing Shaler as he’d intended. But given that he’d counted at least four security escorts around her, it was better not to test their abilities to spot people like him.
“If you give me a minute, I could show you back downstairs. I’ve got a fifty-cent tour that might beat your dime.”
“I can find my way, thank you.” He added to his voice the curt edge of a man who was used to and resented being patronized because of his disability. He followed the banister around the turn of the landing and continued down the stairs.
A gorgeous redhead arrived at the base of the stairs. “Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” Trevalian answered, looking in her general direction and raising his head like a dog sniffing the wind. The air smelled of ambrosia, and something earthy and pungent.
“You didn’t happen to see…that is, I’m sorry…Did anyone pass by you just now?” she asked.
Trevalian knew intuitively to stay out of this. The man who’d run into him had clearly been in a hurry: but to make a love nest or to avoid one?
And then, from above, “Up here, Ailia.”
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled. “Excuse me,” she said, hurrying past him, leaving Trevalian awash in her complex scents, and, to his surprise, aroused.
Y ou look a little lost,” a friendly voice said from behind Walt.
He turned to find Clarence Stillwill, a fixture in the Wood River Valley for the past forty years. He’d been a river guide, a saloon owner, a magazine and book publisher, and was currently an organic farmer on twenty acres outside of Fairfield. And for good measure he and his wife filled in as bartenders for friends who ran the most popular catering company in town.
Clarence was a big man, but well proportioned so it didn’t show until you stood right next to him, part cowboy, part college professor. He manned a wine bar between two potted trees.
Walt took a beer.
“Money like this…”
“Yeah,” Walt said.
“This house…he’s here, what, three weeks a year?”
“If that.”
“Talk about a crime.”
“I know.”
“Why the civvies?” Clarence asked.
“I’m undercover.”
“Yeah, you fit right in here.”
“I’ve got to do the impossible: convince a woman not to talk.”
“It really is a thankless job.”
“Jerry’s involved.”
“How is it between you two?”
“About the same,” Walt said.
“Bobby’s death?”
“The great divide.”
“It was a real loss. How’s the kid?”
“Messed up.”
“Yeah,” Clarence said. “Kinda figured.”
“We all are. Gail and I…A lot of that was losing Bobby.”
“I figured you two forever.”
“You and me, both.”
“Can’t live with ’em, can’t kill ’em.”
“Cheers to that,” Walt said, hoisting the beer.
“In case you missed it, Tommy Lee Jones keeps checking you out.”
Walt looked to see Dryer staring him down.
“Guys like that,” Clarence said, indicating Dryer, “they’ll put up a fight, but they won’t take you to the mat. At the end of the day, it’s just a paycheck for them.”
“Your lips to God’s ears.”
A waitress interrupted and placed an order. As Clarence went to work, Walt looked up to see Danny Cutter in profile, clear across the room, up on the balcony. He was chatting up a redhead with quite a profile.
Walt’s cell phone buzzed, and he ducked behind a potted tree to answer.
A woman’s grating voice cleared the wax from his ears. “Kevin tells me we’re invited to dessert with you and Jerry up at the Pio. Is that for real?”
“Hello, Myra.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“But it sounds noisy.”
“Kevin’s right. Dessert is for real. My treat. The Pio, maybe eight-thirty, quarter to nine.” He checked his watch, realizing if she hadn’t called, he might have forgotten the dinner with his father. The Salt Lake photographs had pushed all else from his mind.
“But Jerry?” she asked. “What if he’s drinking?”
“Then you’ll be doing me a big favor by coming,” Walt said honestly.
“Okay…okay. But he starts dumping on Kevin, we’re out of there.”
“And I’ll be right behind you,” Walt said.
He hung up the call, wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
T ell me you weren’t running from me,” Ailia said.
Danny took a little too long to say, “Don’t be silly.”
She gestured to the nearest guest room, marked “Guercino” on the door.
“Indifferent. Or trying to be,” Danny said.
“But why?”
“New leafs don’t turn over easily.”
“Oh, God, don’t tell me you bought the whole twelve-step thing.”
“I bought it, but it was on credit.”
“Five minutes. Don’t make me beg.” She led him down the hall and into the first guest suite-as it happened, his.
She closed the door with authority.
“I’m going to skip the missing-you part, and how hard it’s been, and get to the point: I can help you, Danny. Want to. With Stu, I’m talking about. Trilogy.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Patrick told me all about it. He’s in a snit you won’t keep it in the family, but hey, if it’s Stu and me, it’s almost family anyway, don’t you think?”
“I think this is my business and Paddy had no right to-”
“Oh, come on! He’s looking after you. We’re all looking after you. And at least one of us is looking right at you.” She stepped closer, a dozen sweet smells swirling in front of her. “I’m not the enemy, you know?”
If she moved another inch toward him their bodies would touch. Now he felt her body heat. It mixed with her scent and his head swam.
“Allie…no.”
“Ah, come on. Why deny a girl a little pleasure?” Her breath smelled of red wine. “You know how I am about pleasure.”
The longer she stood there, the weaker his will. He inhaled deeply and some hairs danced toward his face.
She whispered, “Let me help. Please.” She tentatively placed her hands on his waist, above his hip bones. “I’m not going to beg,” she said. “Not until our clothes are off, at least. You know how I get.” She smiled, and as much as he wanted to see her as self-serving and shallow, a middle-aged flirt, to be turned off by her, he found himself quite the opposite. He liked aggressive women. She knew this about him and exploited it. “I’ve been fantasizing about you, Danny, for over a year now. In the shower. Alone at night. That’s a lot of fire needs putting out. You know me.”
He felt his resistance failing. Her perfumes invaded him and hit like a drug. His skin burned where she touched him.
“Feel where I’m the warmest?” she said, pushing her hips forward and burning through to his thigh.
More scents escaped from her neckline-dark, lusty odors that didn’t come from a bottle-scents that were designed to trigger urges and instincts, and he was a fool to think he could prevent it. He drank them down and they fed him, and the addict in him, so barely confined, wanted more. He’d sworn no internal oath against this. He had no battle with her. Physically he needed this, and she knew it and the offer that now came out of her, in an expression of hands and a willingness of her lips parting to kiss him, so overwhelmed him that he didn’t simply give in to it, he thrived on it.
He pulled off her clothes, down to that tangle of dark, and devoured her in a flurry of impulse, while she pleasured herself behind guttural coughs as she sped toward climax.
Down in the living room, the quartet played on, their strains heard as muted sentimental nonsense, while in the room, behind a wincing call for more, the real music played to its finale.
P atrick Cutter couldn’t find them. He’d lost track of Ailia and Danny, and while overcome with joy at the arrival of Shaler, he wanted to spare his brother from doing something stupid. Added to his motivation was jealousy, but he kept that in check for the time being. Having left Liz Shaler in capable hands, he now searched more aggressively.
He crossed through the kitchen, briefly sidelined by Heinz, his German chef imported from southern France. Ironically, the complaint involved Stuart Holms’s personal chef, who had “taken over” one of the three ovens “without regard” for Heinz. Patrick settled the man down and got out of there in a hurry. Holms’s chef traveled with Stuart everywhere, supposedly to provide a special diet to the Wall Street wonder. He was currently preparing finger food for a party of one. Chef Raphael delivered each plate of treats to his boss personally, making a great show of it and convincing some-Patrick was sure-to believe it was Holms’s party, not his. The delay heightened his sense of urgency: He had to find Ailia before she relit his brother’s fuse, and perhaps blew them all up in the process.
Passing his wife’s study, he stopped short.
“May I help you?”
The man sitting behind her desk wore dark sunglasses. He had a mustache and beard, and looked vaguely familiar.
“Are you a waiter?” the man asked.
“I’m the owner, actually. Patrick Cutter. May I help you?” Only as the man stood out of the chair did Patrick spot the white cane leaning against the desk.
“It’s Rafe Nagler, Mr. Cutter.”
Patrick muttered an apology and hurried across the room. After some awkwardness of unknown etiquette on Patrick’s part, the two shook hands. “So glad you made it!” he said.
“Stonebrook was honored to be invited.”
“You have a marvelous reputation.”
“The foundation, you’re speaking of. My reputation is, as I’m sure you are aware, that of a loner. A recluse. That’s exaggerated, I assure you.”
“The Nostradamus of new technologies? You’re entitled to your eccentricities, Mr. Nagler. We’re happy to have you. You’re in my wife’s study. Did you know that?”
“Her study?” the man asked. He smiled. “Good God, how embarrassing. I was looking for a place to sit down is all.”
“You found one, but maybe you’d prefer something a little closer to the party? Or if you want some solitude, I can send a waiter.”
“No, please,” Nagler said. “I’ll rejoin the party with pleasure.”
“I heard about your dog, and I’m gravely sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through. We’re looking into some possible remedies.”
“It’s kind of you, but don’t trouble yourself. I’m pursuing some options. I’m not bad with a cane, if you excuse mistaking a study for the dining room.”
Cutter laughed and then helped the man to the door, turning him toward the noise of the reception. “If you’ll excuse me…,” he said.
“Pleased to meet you,” Nagler said, heading toward the din.
Patrick headed a few steps toward the north staircase when something pulled at him and he reentered the study. It was narrow and long. Not easily mistaken for a dining room that sat twenty-eight. He couldn’t identify what bothered him about Nagler’s explanation, but it was enough to draw him to the far side of his wife’s desk and next to the chair where Nagler had sat. Now he realized what had called him back: the reflection of the computer screen in the window behind her chair. It should have displayed the screen saver: a photo of Bald Mountain in winter. Instead, it showed the Windows home screen.
The screen saver only left the screen if the keyboard was touched or the mouse moved.
Nagler could have bumped it, he supposed. Gnawed at by lost time, he took one last look before returning to his search for Danny.
But a nagging sensation remained: How had Nagler bumped the keyboard or mouse, given that both were at the far end of the desk?
A s Walt followed Dryer and Shaler out of the living room and into the sumptuous library, he caught a brief glimpse of the blind man, Rafe Nagler, just leaving by the front door. It reminded him to try to find Nagler a loaner sight dog.
“So…Walt…what is it?” Liz asked, once Dryer had pushed the door shut. She sat down heavily in a leather chair and rubbed her right calf.
Walt glanced over at Dryer, who returned an unsympathetic look. The photos weighed heavily in Walt’s back pocket.
“We have evidence, Your Honor, of a horrific killing in Salt Lake City. It makes me wonder if we can provide for your safety.”
“Adam?”
“I feel differently but promised the sheriff face time with you.”
“Of course,” she said. Giving her attention to Walt immediately soured Dryer.
Walt reviewed the discovery of the body at the Salt Lake airport, describing it as a gruesome murder but avoiding anything too graphic per his arrangement with Dryer. He finished by saying, “There’s a possibility this ties in to the most recent threat.”
“There is no evidence connecting the two.”
Walt countered, “A possible suspect was followed by a TSA agent to the E concourse, where he subsequently disappeared. The first flight leaving that concourse was bound for Sun Valley, Your Honor.”
Her eyes tightened and fell away from Walt to an unfixed stare. “I see.” As she regained composure she looked up at Dryer, who wouldn’t look directly at her.
“We met that flight,” Walt said, “having received this intelligence in advance, and failed to identify a suspect matching the description we’d been given. But I should caution: That doesn’t mean he wasn’t on that flight.”
“It’s a lot to process,” she said.
Walt said, “Evaluation of an event like this can take weeks. I’m told the FBI has seized security video from the airport that might have helped us. Anticipate a wrestling match with Homeland over those tapes.”
“We’re heading into a weekend,” Dryer reminded, “and that doesn’t help us any.”
“So there’s no way to know who this dead man was, or why he was killed?” she asked.
Walt suggested two possibilities: one, that the intelligence intercept had been a ruse and that the target of the contract was now dead; two, that the dead man was killed because he’d recognized the killer or had seen something he shouldn’t have.
“Or,” she said, “I can hear it in your voice, Walt. Come on. I’m a big girl.”
One of Shaler’s handlers knocked on the library door, but Dryer took care of it. He glowered at Walt and tapped his wristwatch, out of sight of Shaler.
“There’s always the possibility this murder was a warning,” Walt said.
“How so?” She looked horrified.
“A message to you-to us-to let us know how serious they are, how professional, how capable. They’re telling you not to run, not to announce your candidacy.”
“Speculation!” Dryer interrupted.
“I asked him to speculate,” Liz Shaler countered. “Intimidation?” she asked Walt.
“Your Honor,” Walt said, “I have no doubt that between Agent Dryer and me we can put a screen around you at the various functions this weekend. But none of us can absolutely guarantee your safety. This person killed inside an airport-about as secure a facility as you can get these days. All I’m saying is, if you’re having any reservations about announcing your candidacy, you might want to change things up-hold a press conference sooner rather than later. Move the announcement back to New York. If there is a killer out there, it’ll throw him off.”
“There you are!” Patrick Cutter announced as he charged through the door. He dismissed Walt and Dryer without so much as a glance. “Been looking for you everywhere.”
“A little business to attend to,” Liz Shaler said. She looked over at Walt and he saw apology on her face.
Cutter’s arrival had slammed her back into the reality of her headlining his coveted conference. He wondered what it felt like to be drawn between power and money and one’s personal safety. He got his answer more quickly than he wanted.
“Well,” she said, pulling herself up out of the chair, but slowly, as if suddenly more heavy or painful. “I’ll count on you to keep me up on any developments, Walt. Day or night, okay?”
“Smoky-backroom deals?” Patrick Cutter said in his obligatory sarcasm.
“There’s been a murder in Salt Lake that has all the markings of a professional hit.” Walt’s voice was filled with frustration.
“Well, good,” Cutter said, without missing a beat. “We must have been given bad information. What a relief.” With a penetrating look, he challenged first Dryer, then Walt, and finally Shaler to contradict him.
Walt was about to when Liz Shaler caught his eye and silently called him off.
“Who needs a drink?” Cutter asked, ever the jovial host. “I’m buying.” He laughed at his own joke, took Liz Shaler by the elbow, and led her to the door before Walt gathered his courage.
As Cutter opened the door, there stood Stuart Holms, about to knock. For a moment tension filled the short space between Holms and Shaler.
“Your Honor,” Holms said.
“Mr. Holms,” Shaler returned.
“I know we’ve had our issues,” Holms said. “I was just wondering if we might get a minute together? I would hope we could both put the past behind us and keep an open mind toward the future.”
“From what I read in the press,” Liz Shaler said, “the past is hardly behind us. You’ve made your opinions of me abundantly clear.”
“I’d like to discuss that.”
Another palpable silence fell between them. “Let’s all get a drink!” Cutter moved her through the door. “Come on, Stu-let’s get this worked out.”
Liz glanced back at Walt furtively, still outwardly apologetic. With the music and the drone of excited conversation entering the room like a wave, Walt found himself making a parallel to Marie Antoinette’s lowering her head into the guillotine.
Three clocks tolled throughout the house within a few seconds of one another: 8 P.M.
He was late for dinner.
W alt joined his father at a table in the near corner of the Pioneer Saloon’s restaurant, just below a wall display of barbed wire. Jerry sat with his back to a pair of rawhide snowshoes. The tabletop was sealed in so many coats of polyurethane that it looked like a piece of amber.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Nothing new.”
A bouncy waitress arrived. Walt ordered a house salad and ribs; his father, a bowl of corn chowder, a thick cut of prime rib, and another Scotch.
Jerry, already looking drunk, indicated a copy of The Express Weekender he’d been reading-a seasonal supplement to the town’s weekly paper. “This just in: You’ve got birds shitting in your county dog pound and a cougar snacking on yellow Lab mountain dogs. The Wild West certainly offers challenging crimes.”
Walt had no desire to mention Salt Lake and start an argument. “Beats working for a living!”
“You should patch it up with Gail for the sake of the kids.”
“Gail is where she should be, Dad. Leave it alone.”
“She’s your wife.”
“Was. The truth of the matter is, she was a great wife, a terrific wife, but a lousy mother. She never rose to the job, and knew she never would. Say what you want, but some women aren’t cut out for it, just as some guys aren’t. And she’s one of them. It was never going to work.”
“This is you talking.”
“She’d tell you the same thing, I promise.”
“It’s going to wreck the kids,” Jerry mumbled, trying to sip Scotch at the same time.
“Believe it or not, they’re way better than they were. Now when they see her it’s for a few hours, a half day at most, and she can handle that just fine. Thrives. She’d grown gloomy and short-tempered. It was a bad scene.”
“She’s your wife.”
“I know it violates your Ozzie and Harriet sensibilities, Dad, but it’s working. Leave it alone. If it ain’t broke-”
“But it is broke.”
“No, it’s not. And why we go around on this every time we talk, I don’t know. What’s with that?”
Five minutes passed in silence. Walt didn’t hear the nearby conversations, or the music, or the guys behind the grill calling out orders-only a droning whine in his ears that the beer would not quiet. His father’s voice saying, She’s your wife.
“Why the end run this afternoon? Why cut me out like that?” Walt said. “How can that possibly help anything?”
“You took that all personal. It wasn’t like that.”
“You can’t stand the thought of me running this, can you?”
“I never said that.”
A second Scotch was delivered, along with the salad and soup. Jerry ignored the soup.
“If she made the announcement early,” Walt said, “it might help.”
“You’ve had protection experience?” Jerry found this amusing. “Save your energy for this cougar.”
Another silence descended. Their meals were delivered.
“Is it so impossible that we all might actually work together?” Walt suggested.
“Is that your experience talking?”
“Where’s this coming from? What did I do to deserve this?”
Jerry made a point of dramatically checking his watch. “We don’t have near enough of that kind of time.”
“Don’t mix me up with Bobby.”
Jerry slapped the table. His drink jumped. He won the attention of a few nearby tables. He leveled his bloodshot eyes at Walt, wiped his wet lips with his napkin, and then carefully sawed through his slab of prime rib.
“I asked Myra and Kevin to join us for dessert,” Walt said. “If you don’t want to see them…”
“’Course I do.”
“Kevin needs us, Dad. Needs us as role models, not constantly at battle. Maybe we could declare a truce for a few minutes tonight.”
Jerry sought answers in his reflection in the drink. “What battle?”
“And at some point we’ve got to clear the air on Bobby’s death.”
The man’s eyes flashed darkly.
“Kevin and Myra need closure. Keeping it to yourself-”
“I’m not keeping anything to myself.”
“You think you’re protecting us. I know your heart’s in a good place on this. But it’s boomeranging.”
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,” Jerry said.
“We can’t help Bobby, but we can put this family back together, Dad.”
“You and Gail are doing your part. Right?” Jerry pulled on the Scotch, rescuing the ice cubes from drowning. He peered out from beneath his brow, cruelly, then set the drink down without a sound.
Walt spotted Myra and Kevin by the grill, scanning tables. “Here they are,” Walt said. “Remember, Dad, he’s not a little boy anymore.”
Jerry drained the drink. “Shut the hell up.”
T revalian occupied a high stool in a darkened corner near the entrance to the Duchin Lounge. At 11:15, the place was jumping.
Immediately to his left, a Madison Avenue type, remade in three-hundred-dollar jeans and colorfully stitched cowboy boots, made sloppy with a woman twenty years his junior. They drank from martini glasses; she had an annoying habit of reapplying her lipstick between sips and kisses.
Joe Fos-a Filipino in his sixties-animated jazz standards and show tunes with keyboard flourishes. The bass player pulled the drummer along, and the dancers never rested.
At standing room only, the volume of conversation overpowered the attempts of young waitresses taking orders.
Trevalian nursed a Drambuie, not out of any great love for the potent liqueur, but because it promised to color his breath for the next several hours, and that might prove important.
He had yet to find a way to work around the loss of Ricky. The idea had been to establish himself with the dog so that a substitution wouldn’t be noticed.
At the set break, he studied the clientele, the clubby, familiar way they moved from table to table saying their hellos with air kisses and firm handshakes. Bits and pieces of conversation reached his corner: golf, film, and some politics. Elizabeth Shaler’s name surfaced more than once. He kept an eye on the door in case she happened by. He’d read the New Yorker piece-he’d read nearly everything written about her. Knew her better than she knew herself. Old habits died hard.
When the band began again, it did so as a quartet, behind the enchanting voice of a dirty blonde in her midthirties. She wore a tight-fitting red cocktail dress with a plunging neckline that tickled her navel. She’d worked on her face to look young and innocent. But her smoky, emotionally charged voice added to her years. She won herself light applause, but deserved better. Another place, another time, and he might have been interested.
Shaler never showed. The combo stopped at 11:45, the snifter on the piano overflowing with twenty-dollar tips. The tables slowly emptied ahead of the 1 A.M. closing. Trevalian left the lodge, stepping out into the surprisingly chilly mountain air. He walked quietly along the beautifully lit paths, past the shops, the theater, and the pond, reaching the inn. He continued on, out into the parking lot and beyond, finally reaching a delivery alley.
Moonlit, gray scattered clouds raced overhead, sliced into pieces by the mountain peaks. He worked into a slight stagger, for appearance’s sake, and proceeded down the narrow strip of asphalt toward the loading bays behind the inn.
From the study off Cutter’s kitchen, Trevalian had found the wife’s Outlook program up and running, and he’d scanned her calendar for appointments and appearances. Two entries had mentioned Shaler by name: the opening luau on Friday night and the luncheon on Sunday at 10 A.M.
Rafe Nagler had an invitation to the luau but not to the luncheon.
His foray tonight was to study the layout of the banquet room ahead of her keynote on Sunday-to pace off exit routes and familiarize himself with the look and feel of the ballroom through eyes not clouded by prosthetic contact lenses.
His skin cool, his heart rate calm, Trevalian casually entered a loading bay and moved through a dark service hallway behind the banquet room. He passed food service trolleys, discarded aprons, and a wall phone with a stretched-out cord. The corridor smelled unpleasant but not unfamiliar-years of spilled salads comingling with the stain of human sweat. He pulled open a fire door marked BANQUET ROOM C.
He stepped inside.
Sand. The entire ballroom floor was covered in it. Three inches deep or more. Trevalian sank into it, both astonished and horrified. Then he recalled the Friday night dinner had been themed a luau, and he marveled at Patrick Cutter’s excess. Would it stay the weekend, or would it be removed by Sunday? If it stayed, it would prove a formidable obstacle for him.
His eyes were just beginning to adjust when he heard voices at the far doors.
Someone was coming inside.
N early an hour earlier, at 12:30 A.M., Walt had hit a wall of fatigue while attempting to catch up on paperwork. Preparing to call it a night, he’d been organizing the Salt Lake photos when he saw one of the retail space’s torn-apart ceiling. Then he checked Shaler’s master schedule, grabbed his gun belt, and took off at a run.
Now, at nearly 1:30 A.M., driving north, he called O’Brien’s cell phone.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“I wish,” answered the security man.
Walt asked, “Did your guys check the banquet room after the workers got out of there?”
“You worry too much. I like that about you. We’ve got all day tomorrow. The first real event is the luau tomorrow night.”
“Shaler’s scheduled for a walk-through and sound check at 10 A.M., preregistration.”
He could practically hear O’Brien thinking.
“We need to sweep the room,” Walt announced. “I’m heading up there. I’m going to do a walk-through tonight.”
“Tonight? How ’bout first thing in the morning? We’ve got to move Patrick back into the residence. He dined in town following the party.”
Walt could hear O’Brien’s despair. Private security often amounted to little more than babysitting. He’d never envied his father his six-figure salary for this reason.
O’Brien offered to send two of his guys over to help Walt.
“I’m good. I’ve got patrols doing nothing this time of night.”
With O’Brien still making offers, Walt politely signed off and called Tom Brandon. Brandon was off duty. When he failed to reach him, Walt turned off into the Red Top trailer park. With so many of the trailers looking the same, he drove past Brandon ’s on his first try. It wasn’t the trailer, but his wife’s car that stopped Walt on the second try: Gail’s minivan was parked in Brandon ’s driveway. He slowed, then continued on, catching sight of the trailer in his rearview mirror. Dark. Locked up for the night.
He pulled to the corner, stopped, and threw his head against the steering wheel. He couldn’t catch his breath. His heart was doing a tumbling act. He squeezed out tears before he knew it, then leaned back and wiped his face on his sleeve. He kept checking the rearview mirror, the minivan and the trailer now quite small in the frame, hoping he’d gotten the wrong place, the wrong car. He drove around the block again, and this time checked the plates. Stopped at the same corner. Ached the same way.
He thought back to Brandon ’s comment about running against him in the primary, and he saw it on a whole new level. His deputy was doing his ex-wife. Stealing the best thing in his life. Never mind that it had to end, it didn’t have to end like this, and for a brave moment Walt considered confronting them both.
Then he drove on, in a daze of confusion, a lump like a piece of coal rammed down his throat.
He did his best to control his voice and summoned his patrols over the radio. But a bear had been reported tearing up trash cans mid-valley and his two available cars had responded. He headed to Sun Valley, alone and afraid in a way he’d not felt. His father’s sarcastic sting about the nature of crime in the valley-his job-echoed uncomfortably in his mind. Gail had moved on. It was all but unthinkable-but think about it he did.
He checked in at the inn’s front desk, not wanting Sun Valley security mistaking him for a prowler.
The Bavarian woman behind the desk said no one was to enter the banquet rooms until morning.
He touched his sheriff’s badge, pinned to his uniform. “I’m not asking. I’m just letting you know I’m here. If you’d like, I’d be happy to wake Larry Raffles.” Walt pulled out his cell. Raffles managed the resort.
She declined, though a little frostily, dangled a set of keys, and led Walt down a walnut-paneled corridor. She unlocked a set of doors for him and accompanied him inside. A geometric shape of light flooded across lavishly decorated tables and…sand.
The young woman found some lights. Enough to navigate.
“I’ll make sure it’s locked when I leave. And I’ll stop by the desk, so you know I’ve left.” He thanked her. The door clunked shut behind her.
The room was shaped like a shoebox, with Walt in the center of one of the long sides. He faced the elevated riser from where Liz Shaler would give her talk. It currently held six potted palm trees. Gift boxes sat at each place setting. Envy nibbled at Walt-that Cutter, or anyone, should have this kind of disposable income.
He dragged his feet through the thick sand wishing he could take his boots off. He reached the riser, knee height and rimmed with a navy blue skirt.
Through his grief, frustration, and fatigue, something tugged at him. He’d come to respect such sensations. He stood absolutely still, blood thumping past his ears, his throat dry. Wishing for more light, he spotted a bank of dimmer switches forty feet away. Almost automatically, he unsnapped his holster, felt the cool of its gnarled grip. Moved silently, sweat breaking out all over him.
The bank of light switches was too far. He felt drawn to his right, and he followed his instinct.
His boots moved absolutely silently in the sand. He passed one table after another, looking left, right, ahead, and behind.
The tablecloths cascaded down to seat height, screening the area beneath the tables, leaving fifty hiding places to search.
His radio, clipped to his waist, spit with static. “Sheriff, what’s your twenty?”
A blur to his right. A man’s form raced for an exit, slammed a door open, and vanished before Walt got a decent look at him.
Running now, Walt reached for his radio’s handset and called out the code for a suspicious person, “Ten-one-oh-seven. In pursuit on foot. Sun Valley Inn. Request backup.” His belt snagged a tablecloth and dragged it off to the sound of exploding wineglasses.
He burst into a service hallway that was pitch black. He reached down and silenced his radio.
Took two steps forward. Smashed into a food dolly, tripped, and went down on one knee. Jumped to his feet, his eyes stinging to pierce the dark. The suspect had disappeared.
T revalian, hidden behind a meal cart, kept his back to the wall. He knew the quickest way out: the service hallway to the loading platform. He knew he’d be exposed for several seconds if he ran. But a moving target, at least. The sheriff was less than ten feet away-unmoving, barely breathing. More professional, more careful than he’d have thought.
With his back literally against the wall, he once again calculated the time and distance to the end of the hall. He walked himself through the sharp left turn to the loading dock. He had no desire for confrontation. Only escape.
He hesitated only briefly. Then he shoved the food cart and ran.
W alt drew his weapon as the cart smashed into the wall. He didn’t remember grabbing his flashlight, but there it was, held with the gun as if a single piece.
The dark shape of a man juked right and left, zigzagging down the hall, and was gone.
Walt turned left at the end of the hall and broke through hanging ribbons of sheet plastic used as a cold barrier. He jumped off the loading dock, lost his balance, and fell forward. As he came to his feet, the suspect was now twenty yards ahead of him. A very fast runner.
Walt holstered the gun at a full sprint. He wasn’t going to shoot only to find it was a high school kid, or the wayward son of a hotel guest. He followed out onto the first fairway of the Sun Valley golf course, and heard the tick-tick-tick of lawn sprinklers before he felt the first cold shower. Within seconds he was soaked through, his boots slogging through the spongy grass.
He trailed the suspect by twenty yards as he followed him through a wall of towering evergreens and out into a back parking lot. The man ran well and showed no signs of slowing, having increased the gap between them. Beyond the lot loomed a field of white tents that Walt recognized as the Sun Valley Art Show. Closed for the night, the tents covered two acres and offered the suspect a place to get lost.
He disappeared there, Walt several long seconds behind.
Walt slowed to a walk, catching his breath, listening for the man. He was soaked through, his boots squishing with each step. The vendors had lowered the walls of the tents. He took his weapon back in his hand, aimed the flashlight tent to tent. Yanking back flaps and peering inside, he worked down the row. The man was here.
Walt leaned forward for the next tent, when a sharp snap of fabric turned him around in time to see the darkened figure take off and disappear around a corner. Walt cut through between tents, arriving in the adjacent aisle. He saw a tent jerk and wiggle as his quarry caught a foot on a rope.
Walt crashed through into the next aisle. He spotted the man to his right just rounding a corner. Walt took off at a sprint, hugging the same corner.
The other man jumped out and connected with Walt, shoving him and using his momentum to lift him off his feet. Walt was catapulted into a tent across the aisle, crashed into and through the front wall of canvas, and took out the legs of a portable table. He rolled, came to his feet, tripped over a horse saddle, and went down hard.
A harsh beam of light filled his eyes.
“Sheriff? That you? What the hell?” The voice belonged to a Sun Valley Company security man.
Out of breath, Walt coughed out, “A guy…running…” He pointed. “After him!”
The security man just stood there, confused. “What guy?”
Walt pushed past the man into the aisle. Empty.
“What guy?” the guard repeated.
“Where’d you come from?” Walt asked. “How could you not have seen him?”
“Didn’t see no one. Heard you crashing around over here. Came running.”
“Get on the radio. I don’t want any cars leaving the main lot. Anyone with wet hair gets detained.”
“Wet hair. Yes, sir.”
Walt took off toward the lodge. The hit man was here to kill Liz Shaler, he had no doubt now. Given the element of surprise, the man could have done far worse to him. Stabbed him. Broken his neck. Taken his gun. But he’d attempted none of these and instead of making him an amateur it marked him a pro: He’d done the minimum required to get cleanly away. Intentional or not, the man had delivered a message.
And whether Dryer chose to or not, Walt intended to listen.